"James and the NDP say the Campbell Liberals have abandoned the Prince George forestry workers and their families. It's a point that the party hopes to hit home with a news conference this afternoon in the city. The NDP says it plans to join laid off forestry workers at 2:00 p.m. at Winton Global on River Road to "highlight Gordon Campbell's neglect of issues facing the province"

And how exactly would Carole James and the NDP fix the problems with the industry, those primarily being the state of the US economy and the fact that most of our forests are dead? Does she not understand that nobody in BC or Canada has control over either of those?

I'm sure it will be a great speech though. There wil probably be lots of talk about EI extensions (which the Province can't control), tying wood to communities (which would have no impact on product demand) and how the Libs have abandoned "The North" by not reinvesting or sharing with us the dough earned from this region (when they have likely returned more investment money to "The North" and focused on our area more than the NDP ever did).

"James and the NDP say the Campbell Liberals have abandoned the Prince George forestry workers and their families."

"highlight Gordon Campbell's neglect of issues facing the province"

Same old platitudes. No substance, no credibility, same old disconnect from reality.

BC NDP will cancel the softwood lumber agreement? Does James REALLY support that?

Incredible.

at this time we do not need a government who is more concerned with themselves. We need someone who understands the economic times that we are in and they have to understand that there is little that they can do to fix that. The softwood agreement was made in Ottawa . The only thing that this government can do is to tie all exports to one another. If you want our gas you have to buy our wood ect. They should also be looking at lowering costs to the people of this province and stop selling off our assests.

The Liberals are all talk as usual,and there is no doubt there is an election coming.
The NDP are even more talk and no substance.
The Liberals have an arrogant ass for a leader, and the NDP don't even have a leader.
And let's not forget,the Liberals are the party that put a carbon tax on the fuel people in the north heat their homes with, at a time of high unemployment.
That's a tough one to ignore.
I have a feeling that the huge money numbers the NDP chalked up last time they were in power may very well be exceeded by the Liberals and the Olympics.
Between the two parties we can get ready for the usual he said/she said/they said/we are better/ blah,blah blah.
Both parties have all kinds of great ideas when they are going into an election, but it is all about what happens AFTER they are elected.
The Campbell government will be using a lot of smoke and mirrors in hopes that we will forget what they have done or not done and some of the faux pas they would rather not mention.
What is coming after 2010 will tell the tale, and that is what we need to be thinking about when we go to the polls in May!
Politicians from any party should not be taken seriously before an election!

The last time the NDP were in power about 10% of our population was collecting social assistance. I can't afford that again. Carol James on the same parallel as Jack (Taliban) Layton? I shudder to think.

The last time the NDP were in power we had a forest industry!

North American politics had a right wing dream team in office if you were in British Columbia.

We in BC had a Republican in Washington, a Conservative in ,and a Liberal in Victoria.

Nothing could have been more ideal!

So tell me right wing supporters,

What happened?

"The last time the NDP were in power we had a forest industry"

Don't kid yourself, that has absolutely NOTHING to do with who is in power. The industry is only viable if we have trees to harvest and people to sell the products to. Both of those have been severely compromised recently and there isn't a thing that ANY Provincial Government could do about it. I'm not so sure why that is so hard for people to realize. I suspect it's just human nature and not wanting to face reality when it results in bad things.

Truth be told, I'm actually still waiting for a government, any government, to come out and speak to the realities of the industry and to put forth a plan of how to deal with it. It's much like the auto industry. Every politician in Canada (or at least Ontario) will praise the "Big 3" and offer up comments about how we need to help them, blah, blah, blah. Perhaps someone should come back with a message of "fix your internal problems first and then maybe we'll consider aid".

Messages like that aren't popular and it they will get people into a frenzy, but they are true. Just like it's true that mills will continue to sit idle until money can be made selling products to customers. Until that happens, people will continue to be unemployed in the forestry industry.

I got a B.C. carbon tax rebate in the mail the other day, as promised.

Even if all the forest industry was government owned and run by the government (non-profit, NDP style) it would need customers to sell its products to and it would to go by the rules of the Softwood Lumber Agreement.

It would still be depressed, only even more so.

And the USA would boycott it altogether as we would be black listed.

I wonder how come James has not made a promise to buy themselves a ChooChoo train so all British Columbian's can blow the loco's whistle? Lots of people would vote for the NDP to get a chance to toot the trains horn.

Last time I checked things are much better in PG now then when the NDP was last in.

There is nothing either party can do about the forest industry until the U.S. get their economy churing.

Well Waterbed-Willy, when you pull your head out of the sand did you notice The Pas Lumber was permanently shut down. NCP had burned down with no rebuilding under this business friendly right wing power in power. Did you notice comunities such as Fort St. James and Mackenzie who are serviced mostly from Prince George are now mostly shutdown.

And yeah Waterbed -Willy you can blame all that on nobody but the bad luck of the economy but, the last time I checked, like I said above, the right wing dream team has held power in Noth America as they collectively managed the economy right in the toilet.

So Waterbed-Willy, when you pull your head out of the sand again, have a good look.