Canadian Wood Council

CANADI AN WOOD COUNC I L BVM: What is the background history on CWC? McKinley: “The Canadian Wood Council was established in 1959. It really started as an association of the groups involved in the wood products industry to do some promotion and marketing and get a much-needed national approach for the industry. That evolved quickly into issues of market access. The necessity to work with the building codes and standards and regulations around construction, and to help inform and promote the use of wood construction in those areas. “Then, 21 years ago, CWC went a bit further with its market development group and formed a special program called Wood WORKS! to bring together different marketing efforts across the country; trying to work with architects, engineers, developers, and codes officials to educate them about the opportunities of building with wood. It’s been a very successful means of outreach to the wood construction market, to the construction field. “CWC started as a modest promotion/marketing effort, moving more into market access issues around codes and standards, then formalizing the market development aspect with WoodWORKS!. Etienne Lalonde, who led the way in the WoodWORKS! program just retired after 29 years with the Canadian Wood Council and he will be greatly missed. But he has helped us move ahead with the transition to a new revitalized team that will bring the CWC and the Wood WORKS! program to new areas.” BVM: Are Canada’s forests managed differently from those in other countries? McKinley: “The forest structure we have in Canada differs quite a bit from the U.S. situation, where there is a lot more private ownership. In Canada, 90 percent of our forests are on provincial or territorial Crown lands and about 84 percent of those provide the Canadian commercial timber supply. So there CWC President, Kevin McKinley Courtesy of Western Archrib Photographer, Cooper & O’Hara