Forestry Not Important In BC

By Ben Meisner

When a run of the mill resident of BC or Alberta makes a statement on the economy it is more often than not taken with a grain of salt. When on the other hand a Senior economist with the Canada West Foundation, a Calgary based think tank, makes a statement on the economy , we are expected to stand up and take notice. Well only to a point, given the fact that the world’s top economists failed to predict the last collapse of the world economy  and in more general terms failed even to predict what was at the end of their desk.

Jacques Marcil is that Senior Economist I refer to.

In his recent writings in BC Business magazine he said ” It seems that everywhere you look for analysis about BC’s economy, the problems of the forest industry are the focus. Those observers don’t know that BC’s economy has more than two-by-fours going for it.”

To his credit he did get the fact that the forest industry employees 60,000 people but failed to point out that is the single largest employer in the province.

He talked about the province beating the national average in economic growth and job creation from 2002-2007 while the value of the forest –products exports shrank by 14%. He might have mentioned that the reason why we continued to show those gains came as a result of the provincial coffers being overfilled with revenue in the sale of gas rights, here to for, never heard of. When the price of lumber went into the toilet along with the price of natural gas, so did the BC economy.

It is becoming harder and harder to show those people living in the major urban centers of this province, and in this case Alberta , just how important the rural sections of both provinces are.

In BC fully two thirds of our total wealth comes from that section and yet to read this article one could surmise that they play a very insignificant role.

Suggesting that the Olympics will be pivotal in the recovery of the BC economy is sheer poppy cock.

There is no doubt that it brought a needed transfusion to the lower mainland,  but there is a major expense attached with that , and that expense must be paid for by the two thirds of the economic driver I referred to earlier.

The sheer size of the lower mainland enables it to  feed off of itself for sometime avoiding a drop in the economy that is being experienced in the rural sections of BC. There is however a catch up point and the lack of money and the tightening of the belts in Victoria is a direct result of falling resource revenue.

The economic future of BC will come in the form of increased forestry, gas and oil exploration and export and an immerging mining industry and those 2x4’ s will form a major part of that recovery.

I’m Meisner and that’s one man’s opinion.

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