More Questions on Dollars: One Man's Opinion

By Ben Meisner

    
Just how much money is going to flow into the areas of this province hard hit by the beetle epidemic?

Stand up for the North’s Peter Ewart has done some number crunching and the results are anything but appealing.

Ewart says if you take the $161 Million set aside under the Action Plan for reforestation, divide that by the 8.6 million hectares hit by the beetle and averaged over 5 years of the Action Plan it works out to be about $3.75 a hectare. Just about what a cup of cappuccino is worth.

That raises the question of whether  the comments being made at a recent meeting in the 604, that some communities will just die were not just people speaking into the wind but rather an omen of things to come.

Jock Finlayson, Executive Vice President of the BC Business Council, has estimated the Provincial Government revenues from the forest industry from stumpage, taxes etc, amounted to $5.4 billion in the year 2004-05. Move that figure into the 5 year window and it amounts to about $27 billion dollars.

Using Ewart's figure of $500 million coming from Government, (of course keeping in mind that $135 million of that money comes from the sale of BC Rail and $70 million from the Feds)  it translates into a disaster in the making and government is allowing it to creep ever so closer.

So far we have seen the setting up of some committees (of course all closely connected to government) who control the purse strings for the funding. These committees are following the government line and you can expect nothing less.

Stand Up For The North is worried, damn worried, and so people like Peter Ewart have some very legitimate questions that are being asked and some not so definite answers coming forth.

If it is the intention of government to sacrifice the rural reaches of the province and allow small communities to die, then tell us now, so we might prepare ourselves as to what kind of government we would like to see.

If on the other hand that isn’t true, then let’s see the colour of your money.

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

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