Profile
The Ontario Lumber Manufacturers' Association is an industrial trade association representing the province's independently-operated, non-integrated sawmills in quality of production, public forest policy and international trade.
Members of the OLMA are significant fixtures in most of the 50-plus single industry towns of Northern Ontario, as employers, residents and community leaders. They harvest over half the annual volume of all softwood species in Northern Ontario.
The OLMA provides its members with a system of lumber quality control, ensuring market access within Northern America, Europe and Japan. As an accredited agency of the Canadian Lumber Standards Accreditation Board and the American Lumber Standards Committee, Inc., the Association is empowered to:
- supervise the grading of structural softwood lumber, machine stress rated (MSR) lumber, and finger-joined (Fj) lumber
- train and licence individual people to classify lumber in accordance with recognized grading rules;
- authorize individual manufacturing facilities to mark pieces of lumber with the OLMA facsimile stamp attesting to the quality of each piece; and,
- mediate disputes between buyers and sellers of lumber products bearing the OLMA mark.
Throughout its forty year history, the OLMA has been involved in provincial public policy. A number of its standing committees meet with various divisions of the Ministry of Natural Resources, and review and advise OLMA's Board of Directors on forest policy direction on an ongoing basis. The OLMA makes sure the Minister hears the Ontario sawmill industry's views and opinions.
Another key focus is international trade. Ontario is an active participant in Canada's now twenty-five year long trade dispute in softwood lumber with the United States, ensuring that the province's industry is adequately represented and accurately portrayed. The OLMA promotes the use of Ontario lumber products and helps ensure market access within Northern America and abroad.
