It is so unfortunate that all of the focus over the past 6 months has been on the auto workers. Forestry workers in BC have been struggling for the past couple of years. Why is it that they don't deserve the same kind of concerns in Ottawa or Victoria. In the grand schemes of life, how dam important are the Olympics anyway? It's time to give our heads a shake.

Hey! Dont you know Rufftimes-Gordo needs his legacy; at any cost to the taxpayers.

Shouldn't Gordo be asking the feds for some sort of bailout for the forest industry? At the very least he could ask the Feds to extend these poor folks EI benefits. I guess unless you live in Ontario or Quebec you don't matter.

What kind of bail out do you have in mind.
Seems people have trouble understanding that we are in a serious recession.

There is no point in producing lumber if nobody is buying it, and that will be the case at least until the end of 2009 if not later.

The so called bail out for the Auto Industry is in fact a Government loan with strings attached. If the Auto Industrie does not make the necessary changes, then they too will close down. The best way to help the Auto Industry is to go out and buy a new car. Guess what??? Very few people will do this in the next year or so, mainly because they cannot get credit.

A huge number of Canadians are now earning about $10.00 per hour and have been doing so for a number of years. In addition they have maxed out their credit cards. It is highly unlikely that these people will be buying anything in the next few years. Certainly not a house, or a new car, or bedrooms suites, or fridges, stoves, etc; The baby boomers already have everything they need so they will not be buying either.

This is a very serious downturn in the economy, however not totally unexpected, when business's to-day are run by idiot CEO'S who's main concern was for the bottom line and shareholder value.

Well you have your bottom line and your shares are worth diddly squat.


Years ago when Henry Ford gave all his workers a raise, people said he was crazy, and he replied, that if people were not earning money they could not buy his cars. The same thing applies to-day. Dont expect low income earners to buy cars, or houses etc;, they cant afford it.

When you start paying Auto Workers $70.00 per hour, and they expect people earning $10.00 per hour to buy their product, you know that you have reached the peak of imbecilec thinking.

Auto workers don't actually make 70 per hour. The 70 per hour figure comprises of wages, benefits, and pension payments to retired employees.

Most new vehicles today are well beyond the purchase ability of the average wage earner today. I am making good money in the oil patch and won't even consider buying a new truck that costs in excess of 30 grand. I am quite content spending 5 to 10 grand on a used vehicle every 5 years or so.

I agree that the forestry workers need some support. However they also need to help themselves by retraining and re-inventing themselves too. Just sitting back waiting for a mill to re-open while on EI is no future IMO. You need to be proactive.

Well I don't think government bailouts to the company weather logging or car manufacturers is the answer. No sense bailing out the big car builders. who is going to be working to afford new cars???
But money and courses for retraining would be nice for any industry that is stuggling.

Our local mill here in Quesnel doesn't want to let these guys go, pay them there severance. They just want them hanging in limbo forever, or going off to find something else and forget about their severence pay.

I am sure that you will have noticed that the trend with the auto manufacturing bailouts is to insist that they change their product line. And for good reason too - noboday wants to buy those products anymore. So too is the issue with the forest industry in BC. It is concentrated in the hands of a few players ALL of whom are fixated on one market i.e. the US housing market. These companies plan only to survive until that market turns around and then its business as usual.

Government would be well advised to look at how they can diversify the forest industry's markets. Not just trying to replicate the US market in Japan or China, but seriously looking for viable markets that need not necessarily be big volume markets. The time to look at smaller, more specialized markets, as an addition to the dimension markets, is now and the government needs to find legal ways of getting the timber they will need to satisfy that market in their hands at a fair market price.

The government is not responsible for finding new markets for forest products because it is not in the forestry business. It does little to find new markets for products we are not producing. The auto industry produced the vehicles we wanted. Hindsite is useless in this case. I am sure that the big three would have changed it's product line if it had used a crystal ball to predict our sudden ( and certainly short lived ) change in tastes. With oil prices tanking i will be surprised if the sales of luxury and performance vehicles doesnt pick up. Hell, they would right now if people ould get car loans.
Before you wail about bail outs be sure of what you are talking about. Read Palopou's post above. Most of you are looking for HAND OUTS for the forest sector, not bail outs.

Mercenary- trucks and cars are the cheapest they have been in years if you haven't noticed- not sure about PG but this weekend in Vancouver you could buy a full jam ram half ton 4x4 with leather for $18,900 also one dealer is selling F150 extended cabs for the same price- you can get a real nice truck for 30K .