Okay I may be reading this wrong but can someone tell me how this is going to help forestry workers now? and Who is getting this money?

Short term problems are your own personal issues to deal with. Government is to help with longer term issues that help all by providing opportunities. UNBC and CNC are fully geared up to retrain or add to ones development.

Sorry to sound blunt but unless we are in a socialist country each of us has to be responsible for ourself and family not government or any other.

So the car industry gets in the billions of dollar to help them and the Forestry industry gets only 170 Million ? This is probably the same money they said they would give us before, just re-announced. Plus that 170 million is across the entire country and not just for BC

Must be election time! Nothing will be signed, sealed and delivered until AFTER May 12th. Made up my mind and thats seeya later Gordo!

hillj@parl.gc.ca

Lunarguy, you may decide to send Jay Hill an email at the above address if you have any questions.

Hammmy, this is NOT a provincial announcement, it is FEDERAL! Nothing to do with the provincial election or Gordon Campbell.

Free Enterprise, you are the man.

I wholly agree with Free Enterprises'
notion of personal responsibility however
you must take into account that the average forest industry employee is just not in a position to enjoy or take advantage of higher education. The training that these people can benifit from is severely lacking. CNC missed the boat by a mile by not expanding their Trades programs.
I think the frustration alot of people are feeling is that our tax dollars are being used to prop up an industry that has done very little to better their products or innovate in an ever changing world. Canfor & WestFraser have spent more than
170 million on upgrades & retooling their operations on their own with no direct help. They aggressively market their products & have adapted to market conditions in a way the auto industry never would dream of. The gov't can't trip over themselves fast enough to give money to the auto industry, yet offers paltry sums to an industry that has proven themselves viable. That rubs the wrong way.

I wonder if all this money will make the trees get bigger by 250% by next year.

It is impossible to keep track of the money and how often it gets re-announced. One thing is for sure, it gets re-announced as often as possible.

There is still the $1 billion over 10 years that was supposed to come the way of BC due to the Beetle problem. So, $100 million this year. Have we received that yet? Have we forgotten about it yet?

The feds gave $190+ million to BC to train or retrain people who have lost jobs in Forestry. That is over two or more years. Distributed though the Community Development Ministry.

This is less money than that and is for ALL of Canada. Don't know if this is over one year or more than one year.

What is good about this is that it is for growth, not for fixing infrastructure. This is research and marketing. If you want to manufacture, you have to make sure you can sell the product first.

Will this be for forestry workers? Not much of it. But it goes to the workforce. We are not buying some other country's machinery. We will hopefully invent our own for new prodcuts.

If forestry workers want to use the $5,000 accessible to them through the Community Development program, then they might be able to get a job applying their normal skills plus their newly learned skills to a different part of the forest industry.

Yes Shellshadow, Gus is right about the $5,000.00 for forestry workers. Government is responsible for its people (tax payers) it comes in varried forms. The three that come to mind is the one Gus mentioned for retraining, UIC and of course Welfare. The government has been there to help people in dire straights for many years now. So in a sense you can count on your government for help and are not totally alone to take care of yourself and family if the need arises due to unforseen circumstances. It is not much but it helps. As far as who exactly is getting the monies mentioned above is yet to be determined. I hope some of us have answered your questions.

Oh sure its easy to just say, here's 5 grand go to school and be a somebody. Where's all these jobs that everybodys gonna get after a 6 month stint in school. For a 10 dollar an hour job requires 1 to 3 years experience. Is CNC going to garantee me a job after they get that 5 grand, NO but they sure as hell get paid. Not to mention the labor market reasearch you have to do 1st to get the money for school. Basically look for 5 employers to sign and say they will hire you if I get this training. But who are they going to hire 1st, someone who they can mould and train (young), or Ex forest worker me. First you jump through hoops before any monies get exchanged, thats if you can pass the math test. Hey you know what may as well opt for the 10 dollar job. Miss my plain old labour job and friends. BTW sorry diplo about the screw up between the feds and the povs, makes no difference its all politics.