Ward Stamer asked the Forests minister how many forest roads B.C. was deactivating. Twice, he was given no number.
No member of the last Legislature used the language of road access in more speaking turns than Ward Stamer, the Conservative Forests critic, and that includes the Forests minister himself. He asked how many forest roads and bridges were being pulled, whether the public gets a say first, and what the maps will show. Here is that record in full, what it left out, and how it compares with the two people running against him on Saturday 24 October.
On the first night of Forests estimates, 9 April 2025, Ward Stamer asked the minister a plain, direct
question. How many forest roads had been permanently deactivated, how many bridges had been pulled,
and how many more were planned for 2025? He also asked for “a list of kilometres and
bridges.” The Minister of Forests, Ravi Parmar, told him that on the 2025 numbers “we
don’t have a specific answer.”01 Eleven months later Stamer asked again where the
deactivations stood, and the answer he got was a maintenance budget figure and a plan for a website.
It was still not a count.02
Stamer sits for Kamloops-North Thompson, which runs from the north side of Kamloops up the
valley through Barriere and Clearwater. He spent decades in the forest industry, was mayor of
Barriere from 2018, and won the seat in 2024 with 59.7 per cent of the vote. He was the Conservative
critic for Forests from November 2024 until the House was dissolved.03 On 24 October he faces
Kory Clark of the BC NDP and Deborah Friesen of OneBC.04 This is what he did about forest roads,
what he left out, and how his record compares with theirs.
01 No member used the language of road access more often than Stamer
Ward StamerKamloops-North Thompson · elected 2024 · Conservative candidate, 2026
Elected
2024, with 59.7 per cent
Critic
Forests, November 2024 to dissolution
Speaking turns
23 of 484 on road access
Before the seat
Mayor of Barriere, 2018–2024
On a named road
None in the House
Published address
ward.stamer@conservativebc.ca
Portrait and logo · Conservative Party of BC
We read every House transcript of the 43rd Parliament, Issues 1 to 188, and tested each
speaking turn for thirteen terms of road access, from “forest service road” to
“logging road”.05 Stamer used them in 23 of his 484 turns, which is more than any
other member. The minister responsible for those roads used them in 21.
MemberPartySpeaking turnsTurns using any of the thirteen
Ward StamerKamloops-North Thompson
PartyConservative
Turns484
Used them23
Hon. Ravi ParmarLangford-Highlands, Minister of Forests
PartyBC NDP
Turns599
Used them21
Donegal WilsonBoundary-Similkameen
PartyConservative
Turns450
Used them19
Scott McInnisColumbia River-Revelstoke
PartyConservative
Turns556
Used them17
Steve MorissetteKootenay-Monashee
PartyBC NDP
Turns72
Used them0
Brittny AndersonKootenay Central
PartyBC NDP
Turns68
Used them0
The count flatters him, so read it in full. Nine of the 23 turns use
“Crown land” or “public land” about timber, stumpage or wildfire funding.
Six concern road budgets or the new powers for BC Timber Sales to build, buy and lease logging roads.
Eight are about whether people can keep using a road, and each of those is specific.06
02 He asked for the count, a say for the public, and the maps that show them
This is the exchange from that first night, in his words and the minister’s:
First Session, 43rd Parliament · Issue 38 · Forests estimatesWednesday 9 April 2025 · 7:05 p.m.
Ward Stamer“Can you tell me how many roads were permanently deactivated under the ministry’s responsibility, BCTS and MOF? Can you tell me how many bridges were permanently removed under the same criteria, BCTS and Ministry of Forests? Can you tell me how many roads are going to be permanently deactivated, planned in 2025? Bridges as well. … I’d also like a list of kilometres and bridges that have been pulled last year and anything that is planned for this year.”
Hon. Ravi Parmar“To the member’s particular question around the number of roads or bridges that will be deactivated in 2025, we don’t have a specific answer. You could have an inspection tomorrow that could lead to a conversation or a deactivation. Again, we have a professional reliance model and trust the hard-working staff within the forest service that look at that.”
The minister gave the size of the network, about 60,000 kilometres, and the
maintenance spending. No count of deactivated roads or removed bridges appears in any of his
answers in the parliament.
He had opened by saying that if the numbers did not come back that night, “that’s
fine.”01 When he asked again the next spring, they still had not come.
The rest of the minister’s answer explains why the question mattered. Of the 60,000
kilometres of forest service road the ministry is responsible for, he said, “roughly 12,000 are
roads and sections of roads that we are actively maintaining.” He added that “a lot of FSRs
are sometimes just left to erode once they’re no longer used by industry and are eventually
deactivated.”01 That leaves about 48,000 kilometres the ministry says it is not actively
maintaining, and the minister gave no count of what is being taken out.
Stamer framed it as a public problem, not an industry one. He called these “roads that are
owned by the public”, used for “hiking, biking, fishing, camping, hunting”. When
earlier ministers had told him there was no money, he said, “that’s not the answer. The
answer is that you have a responsibility.”01
The next morning he asked the minister who gets a say before a forest road goes:
“If there’s an expectation, say, on a particular forest service road that has been used, basically, for generations… Is there an opportunity for the public to engage before these decisions are made and before the work is completed?”
Parmar answered that forest roads are “predominantly user-maintained” and that
“it’s not always feasible for the province to maintain all resource roads in
perpetuity.”07 Stamer then asked whether the ministry and BC Timber Sales do annual
danger-tree assessments on their roads, what that costs, and for a breakdown of the maintenance
program “on all access in the province under the FSRs that are under their responsibility.”07
On 12 March 2026, in the next year’s estimates, he came back to the same question:
“I do have a couple of questions, similar to what we had last year, on deactivated roads… Having said that, can the minister give me an update on where we were last year on deactivated roads?”
The minister said road maintenance funding had grown from $6.1 million in 2022–23 to $16.5
million in 2025–26. He said his “long-term vision” was to list every forest service
road on a website, and that the ministry had “some work to do” on telling communities
about closures. He gave no count at all. Minutes later he was asked what the maintenance budget would be for
2026–27, and he said: “It’s the same as last year.”02
In April 2026 the Forests Statutes Amendment Act (Bill 14) gave BC Timber Sales new powers to build, buy and
lease roads. Stamer asked whether the forest operations maps shown to the public would say whether
roads were “permanently constructed or they’re going to be deactivated.” The minister
said the maps would show where roads would go, “but not to the extent that you would have in an
operational plan.”08
He made the point closer to home, too. In April 2025 he told the Emergency Management minister
that from Barriere north, if Highway 5 were blocked, the way out is the Dunn Lake Road, which
“goes to a forest service road and goes into multiple jurisdictions.”09 In May 2025
he objected that new energy projects would share forest service roads with landowners, ranchers,
First Nations and community forests.10
03 He opened the door, and a colleague named the roads
Both years, Stamer used his time to set up his caucus colleagues. In 2025 he said his questions
would “lead into a couple of opportunities for my colleagues to be able to ask questions in
regard to access.”01 In 2026 he said, “I know my colleague would like to ask a couple
of questions, particularly around some access points.”02
That colleague was Donegal Wilson of Boundary-Similkameen, who named the Rady Creek road out of Trout Lake and the
Incomappleux in that debate;02 her record is in our editorial on Donegal Wilson,
and Scott McInnis’s is in our piece on Scott McInnis.
Stamer himself never named a road that was being closed. Across all 484 of his speaking turns there is no
mention of Rady Creek, the Incomappleux, Trout Lake or snowmobiling. He tabled two petitions, one on
a speed limit near Sun Peaks and one for workers at a pole plant, and neither concerned a forest
road.11 Outside the House, his public statements on forestry are about the industry’s
access to timber. “We need significant changes in how we access fibre in this
province,” he said in November 2025.12
The questions did not move the ministry. The count he asked for twice was never given in the House.
The maintenance budget for 2026–27 is the same as the year before. Every one of his questions is on the
record, and none of them produced the count. Asking is the floor of the job, not the ceiling.
It is still more than either of his opponents has on the public record.
His private member’s bill, the Dashboard Cameras in Commercial Vehicles Act, passed the House and
received Royal Assent on 28 May 2026.13 It is a real result, but it concerns commercial trucks on the
highway. On the forest roads themselves, his record is questions.
04 His two opponents have no public record on these roads
Three people are on the ballot in Kamloops-North Thompson: Kory Clark for the BC NDP, Deborah
Friesen for OneBC and Ward Stamer for the Conservatives.04
Kory Clark grew up in Cache Creek and has worked in health care for seven years, including
as a community support worker. His campaign page says he is a member of the Michel Band.14
CFJC reported that this is his first run for political office, and when it asked about his
priorities he named housing and the cost of living.15 His page carries the BC NDP’s
nine-point list, and access, roads and the backcountry are not anywhere on it.14
Deborah Friesen’s OneBC candidate page has headings for her background, her community
involvement, her reasons for running and her priorities. All four were empty when we read it on
9 October.16 We found no office she has held and no earlier candidacy. Her party’s
forestry plan would raise the allowable cut, cut stumpage and speed up permits, and it does not
mention forest service roads or public access.17
Kamloops-North Thompson, on forest roads and backcountry access
Question
Ward StamerConservative
Kory ClarkBC NDP
Deborah FriesenOneBC
Public office held
MLA for the riding since 2024; mayor of the District of Barriere from 2018 to 202403
Portraits · Conservative Party of BC, BC NDP and OneBC candidate pages · Logos · the party websites
Read that difference fairly. Neither challenger has held a seat, so neither has had a
floor to raise it from, and a candidate who has not been asked has not refused to answer. Stamer has
had two years of estimates. That is why his record can be measured, and why it can be measured
against what he did not get.
We searched the candidates’ own pages and platforms, CFJC, Radio NL, the Barriere
Star Journal, the Clearwater Times, Sun Peaks Independent News, InfoNews and Armchair Mayor, from
2024 to 9 October 2026. Castanet and Kamloops This Week could not be read on 9 October, and Facebook,
Instagram and X require a sign-in, so none of them was searched.18
05 Ask all three candidates the same three questions
No provincial all-candidates forum has been announced in Kamloops-North Thompson, and the
Kamloops Chamber’s election page lists only the municipal forums.19 So put these three questions to
every one of the candidates directly, by email, before 24 October:
Will you get the count published?How many kilometres of forest
service road and how many bridges were deactivated last year, and how many are planned? Stamer asked
twice in the House, in two different years, and was never told.
Will the public get a say before a road goes?That means notice and a
chance to be heard before the work starts, which is what Stamer asked for in April 2025.
Which road in this riding will you fight to keep open?In two years
of questions in the House, the sitting member never named one.
Ward Stamer publishes ward.stamer@conservativebc.ca and Kory Clark publishes
kory.clark@bcndp.ca.20 Deborah Friesen’s page lists no address, so reach her
through OneBC. Ask all three the same three questions, and then compare what each of them says.
Six images that carry this story on their own: the question Ward Stamer asked, the answer he got, how his record compares with every other member’s, and with the two people running against him. Made to be posted.
Ward Stamer asked the Forests minister how many forest roads B.C. was deactivating. Twice, he was given no number.
Stamer is the Conservative candidate in Kamloops-North Thompson and was the party’s Forests critic. On 9 April 2025 he asked in the House how many forest roads had been permanently deactivated and how many bridges pulled, and asked for “a list of kilometres and bridges.” The minister said: “we don’t have a specific answer.” Stamer had said that if the numbers did not come back that night, “that’s fine.” In March 2026 he asked again and got a budget figure, not a count.
No member of the last Legislature used the language of road access in more speaking turns: 23 of his 484, against 21 for the Forests minister. Eight of the 23 are about whether people can keep using a road. He asked whether the public gets a say “before these decisions are made,” and whether public maps will show which roads will be deactivated.
The questions did not move the ministry. The count was never given, the road maintenance budget for 2026–27 is the same as last year, and he never named Rady Creek, the Incomappleux or any road being closed.
His opponents, Kory Clark (BC NDP) and Deborah Friesen (OneBC), have no public office on record, and we found no public statement from either on forest roads or backcountry access.
No forum has been announced in the riding, so ask all three directly before 24 October: will you get the count published, will the public get a say before a road goes, and which road here will you fight to keep open?
↩Hansard, 43rd Parliament, First Session, Issue 38, evening sitting of Wednesday 9 April 2025, Committee of Supply, Ministry of Forests estimates, from 7:05 p.m. — Ward Stamer’s opening remark, “if we don’t get the numbers right back, that’s fine”; his questions on permanently deactivated roads, removed bridges and those planned for 2025, the request for “a list of kilometres and bridges”, the passages on roads “owned by the public” and on “hiking, biking, fishing, camping, hunting”, and his note that the questions would lead into his colleagues’ questions on access; with Hon. Ravi Parmar’s answer at about 7:10 p.m., which also gives the 60,000 and 12,000 kilometre figures quoted in this piece. Link
↩Hansard, 43rd Parliament, Second Session, Issue 141, afternoon sitting of Thursday 12 March 2026, Ministry of Forests estimates in Committee of Supply, from about 3:20 p.m. — Ward Stamer’s question on deactivated roads and his hand-over to a colleague on “access points”; the minister’s answer on the maintenance budget ($6.1 million in 2022–23 to $16½ million in 2025–26), the planned website for forest service roads and “some work to do” on communication; and, from about 3:40 p.m., Donegal Wilson’s questions naming Rady Creek and the Incomappleux, the minister’s “there’s buyer beware”, and his answer on the 2026–27 maintenance budget, “It’s the same as last year.” Link
↩Conservative Party of BC, candidate page for Ward Stamer — about 45 years in the forest industry, the Barriere Improvement District, Barriere’s first council after incorporation in 2007, and mayor of Barriere from 2018 until his election as MLA in 2024; the portrait used here and his campaign address. Link. The 2024 result, 17,930 votes or 59.74 per cent against 9,874 for the BC NDP and 2,209 for the BC Greens, is from Elections BC, Statement of Votes, 2024 Provincial General Election, Kamloops-North Thompson Link. The Forests critic role: Radio NL, 20 November 2024, “John Rustad reveals BC Conservative shadow cabinet” (“Ward Stamer – Forests”) Link; and CFJC Today, Victor Kaisar, 31 July 2026, “Forests critic Stamer laments Interfor’s decision to relocate corporate head offices out of B.C.” Link. The Legislature was dissolved on 22 September 2026, when the election was called. The riding’s communities are those listed on the Kamloops & District Chamber of Commerce election page, which is our source 19, read on 9 October 2026.
↩Elections BC, 2026 Provincial General Election — candidate list (CSV), last modified 9 October 2026: three candidates in Kamloops-North Thompson, Kory Clark (BC NDP), Deborah Friesen (OneBC) and Ward Stamer (Conservative Party). Link
↩Debates of the Legislative Assembly (Hansard), 43rd Parliament — every official House transcript of both sessions, Issues 1 to 188, 18 February 2025 to 28 May 2026, downloaded from the Assembly’s document service at lims.leg.bc.ca and read in full; Committee of Supply is included, and the separate select standing committee transcripts are not. Each speaking turn was assigned to the member who opened it and tested, with line breaks collapsed, for thirteen terms: forest service road, resource road, Rady Creek, deactivat*, decommission*, Crown land, backcountry, Incomappleux, public land, road access, access road, motorized recreation and logging road. Two separate counts give the same result. Stamer’s 23 turns are in Issue 31 (two), 38 (three), 39 (two), 40, 60, 138, 141 (four), 157, 159 (seven) and 171. One of them, in Issue 31, splits “forest service road” across a line of the transcript, which is why a count that did not collapse line breaks gave 22. Brittny Anderson’s 68 turns are hers alone; Hansard also records George Anderson of Nanaimo-Lantzville separately.
↩How the 23 turns divide, read one by one in the transcript. About whether people can keep using a road (8): Issue 31, two turns on forest service roads as evacuation routes; Issue 38, the deactivation count; Issue 39, public engagement before deactivation, and danger-tree assessments and maintenance on forest service roads; Issue 60, shared use of forest service roads by energy projects; Issue 141, deactivated roads; Issue 159, whether public maps show deactivation. Road budgets and the BC Timber Sales road powers (6): Issue 38, the outline of the estimates; Issue 141, the vote description for road construction and maintenance, and the number of roads under BC Timber Sales; Issue 159, three turns on BC Timber Sales building, buying and permitting logging roads. Not about roads (9): Issues 38, 40, 138, 141, 157, 159 (three) and 171, where “Crown land” or “public land” refers to stumpage, tenure, wildfire funding, fibre inventory or interface harvesting.
↩Hansard, 43rd Parliament, First Session, Issue 39, morning sitting of Thursday 10 April 2025, Ministry of Forests estimates (continued), about 11:15 a.m. — Ward Stamer on the consultation process before a forest service road is deactivated, and his follow-up on danger-tree assessments and road maintenance; with the minister’s answer that forestry roads are “predominantly user-maintained” and “it’s not always feasible for the province to maintain all resource roads in perpetuity.” Link
↩Hansard, 43rd Parliament, Second Session, Issue 159, afternoon sitting of Tuesday 21 April 2026, committee stage of Bill 14, the Forests Statutes Amendment Act, 2026, about 4:20 p.m. — Ward Stamer on whether forest operations maps will show road locations and whether roads are “permanently constructed or they’re going to be deactivated”, with the minister’s answer; and the clauses giving BC Timber Sales power to construct, maintain, purchase, rent or lease logging roads and bridges. Link
↩Hansard, 43rd Parliament, First Session, Issue 31, afternoon sitting of Wednesday 2 April 2025, Ministry of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness estimates, about 4:25 p.m. — Ward Stamer on evacuation routes north of Barriere via the Dunn Lake Road and a forest service road, with Hon. Kelly Greene’s answer on egress planning. Link
↩Hansard, 43rd Parliament, First Session, Issue 60, afternoon sitting of Thursday 8 May 2025, the second reading debate on Bill 14, the Renewable Energy Projects (Streamlined Permitting) Act, about 3:05 p.m. — Ward Stamer speaking on “access for landowners; access for the Cattlemen’s Association…; access for First Nations; access for community forests” on “the same roads that these projects are going to be using.” Link
↩Search of all 484 Stamer turns in the corpus described in source 05, for Rady Creek, Incomappleux, Trout Lake, snowmobile, back-country and petition. The first five do not occur anywhere in them. His two petitions are in Issue 184 (26 May 2026, 171 residents of Whitecroft on a residential speed limit) and Issue 187 (28 May 2026, 36 workers at the Stella-Jones pole facility).
↩Clearwater Times and Barriere Star Journal, 5 November 2025, “Changes needed to boost timber harvest in B.C., North Thompson MLA says” — Ward Stamer: “We need significant changes in how we access fibre in this province, not just address backlogs after logging has taken place.” Link
↩Hansard, 43rd Parliament, Second Session, Issue 188, Thursday afternoon, 28 May 2026, Royal Assent to Bills — the Administrator assents to the Dashboard Cameras in Commercial Vehicles Act (Bill M217, introduced by Ward Stamer). Link
↩Kory Clark campaign page, BC NDP — his biography (Cache Creek; seven years in health care, including as a community support worker with USW Local 1-417; a member of the Michel Band; volunteering with Interior Health and Bonaparte First Nation), the portrait used here, and the party’s nine-item list, in which access, roads and the backcountry do not appear. Link
↩CFJC Today, Michael Reeve, 1 October 2026, “BC NDP name two rookie candidates to face Kamloops incumbents” — “It’s also the first shot at political office for Kory Clark,” and the priorities he named to the reporter: “Housing, cost of living, these are the things people are thinking about.” Link
↩OneBC, candidate page for Deborah Friesen — the portrait used here, cropped from the party’s graphic, and the four headings “Professional Background”, “Community Involvement”, “Reason for Running” and “Priorities for the District”, each with no text at all beneath it when we read the page on 9 October 2026. Web searches of her name with council, trustee, school board and election found no office held and no earlier candidacy. Link
↩OneBC, “Our Plan, Our Priorities” — the forestry section: increase the allowable cut, reduce stumpage fees, and speed up permit approvals and consultations. It does not mention forest service roads, resource roads, deactivation, the backcountry or public access. Read 9 October 2026. Link
↩Where we looked. The candidates’ campaign and party pages; the BC NDP site, which has published no consolidated 2026 platform, and BC Ballot’s platform tracker; the OneBC platform; CFJC Today, Radio NL, the Barriere Star Journal, the Clearwater Times, Sun Peaks Independent News, InfoNews and Armchair Mayor, through their own search; and name-plus-keyword web searches on forest service roads, resource roads, deactivation, Crown land, backcountry, hunting and forestry, from 2024 to 9 October 2026. For Ward Stamer the same search found no 2026 campaign statement on public access, forest service roads or deactivation; his campaign remarks to CFJC on 24 September 2026 were on affordability. Castanet and Kamloops This Week could not be read on 9 October, and Facebook, Instagram and X require a sign-in, so none of them was searched.
↩Kamloops & District Chamber of Commerce, 2026 Elections Hub — the three Kamloops-North Thompson candidates, the communities in the riding, and the municipal forums of 23 September; no provincial forum is listed. Link. InfoNews, 30 September and 6 October 2026, list no provincial all-candidates forum for Kamloops-North Thompson; the Barriere, Clearwater and Sun Peaks candidate forums were for the municipal elections.
↩Published campaign addresses — ward.stamer@conservativebc.ca on the Conservative candidate page (source 03), and kory.clark@bcndp.ca on Kory Clark’s campaign page (source 14). The OneBC page for Deborah Friesen lists none.
BC NDP
OneBC
