Council Says Yes to Forestry Resolution
Prince George, B.C – With the softwood lumber agreement having expired, and the resulting tariffs and duties levied on forestry companies, Council for the City of Prince George has approved a special resolution.
The resolution comes from Councillor Frank Everitt, who wants to see forestry communities and workers to speak up about the importance of the industry “In the past communities were not involved in the process, the province wasn’t involved in the process , it was just the federal government.”
He suggests people speak up whenever and wherever possible including in Washington “Absolutely! Its about people and we want them to understand in the (Forestry) Ministry in our community and throughout northern British Columbia so we start here and get the message out here then we move to other areas of the province.” He says it’s important for people who work in the industry to speak about the importance of forestry and its impact on local economies.
Councillor Garth Frizzell noted forestry is in crisis, with no softwood lumber agreement, reductions in the annual allowable cut, and current forest fires “What’s going to happen after that(the fires)?
Mayor Lyn Hall says it is a great initiative, “It supports our national negotiating team.”
Comments
As a Member of the Forestry Roundtable and President of the IWA of course he is going to PUSH this and use his position on council to do it.
Considering that council has no power to negotiate as that is Trudeau’ responsibility, this sounds like a lot of puffing up of chests and back patting and making a lot of noise trying to convince us they are really doing something and nothing more.
City Council has had ample opportunities over the years to voice their concerns about the forest industry in PG and the Province, however it seems they had better things to do.
Where were they when the Liberals got rid of the appurtenance legislation thus allowing logs to be milled anywhere in the Province. This was a big contributor to mill closures.
At the moment, when you factor in the price of lumber at $380.00 per 1000 FBM, and the Canadian dollar at 0.80 cents lumber companies in BC are doing great, even with the duties on exports to the USA.
I agree with Garth. What happens when the AAC is reduced, the Cdn dollar rises, and the price of lumber falls. Add on the loss of timber due to wild fires, and we have the makings of a perfect storm.
However, the responsibility for getting a softwood lumber agreement lies with the Federal Government and they do not seem to understand how serious this situation is to BC and the lumber industry in general.
Remember the old saying **shoemaker stick to your shoes** PG and other Municipalities should be spending their energy to ensuring that they can reduce our debt. Save money on all projects we are involved in, and the biggest one of all reduce spending, and decrease taxes.
Time to tighten our belts and become fiscally responsible.
All Governments and Government entities are out of control when it comes to spending tax dollars. In fact how they spend tax dollars is a national disgrace and they should be ashamed of themselves.
Speaking up in Washington is tough these days for the average Canadian. Most blogs of any importance in Washington have become very sufisticated at blocking any comments from outside the USA.
The forest industry needs to focus on the lateral shift rather than depending on the silo of softwood lumber. Look at PBEC with its new Asian partners making value out of forest residuals that in prior years just went to the beehive burners or bush slash fires… now employing hundreds of people in PG alone. We have no shortage of that kind of fiber in BC even in the burn zones.
Can for us developing a bio fuels market, and what about charcoal from deciduous type trees? Can we move more into fiber board markets? What about the hardwood markets that make our areas around towns and cities less prone to fire? Can some of the land base be freed up for ranching with the huge boom in beef prices.
I think the biggest problem for a city like PG is the provincial office responsible for land use that only deals with large multinational corporations as a monopoly industry for land use in the region. That policy has to stop and more diverse uses of our land allowed to evolve such as salvage operations, tourism, ranching, and other forms of land use beyond farming conifers and mining.
I agree 100%.
Comments for this article are closed.