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Pine beetle epidemic: We shouldn’t have to beg for funding

By 250 News

-By Peter Ewart 



Prince George Golf Course            photo by Dave Mynan

The pine beetle epidemic is a natural disaster of the highest magnitude. Once the epidemic plays out in ten years or so, it is estimated that across the province, BC communities will be facing a 20% to 40% reduction in the Annual Allowable Cut of timber, and the loss of thousands of jobs. Prince George will be hit hard, but smaller communities throughout the North like Quesnel, Vanderhoof and Burns Lake could be devastated.

Northern BC is one of the most productive forest product regions in the world, producing in some years enough lumber to build 650,000 houses, not to speak of huge volumes of pulp and paper, as well as value added products and raw logs. The revenue that this region produces for the provincial and federal governments through stumpage and taxes is astronomical, conservatively estimated to be between $600 million to over $1 billion a year.

You might expect that, with that amount of revenue generation for the provincial and federal governments, the people here, who are very hardworking and industrious, would receive back a substantial amount of this revenue to further develop industry and infrastructure in the region, as well as address natural catastrophes like the pine beetle epidemic. But you would be wrong. We live in a province that is highly centralized with political power concentrated in the Vancouver / Victoria region, and, ultimately in the Premier’s office. The federal government has a similar concentration of power, but its centre is back East.

As a result of this concentration of power, the North has been drained of revenue for many years and has watched powerless as successive provincial governments have squandered opportunities, sold off assets (such as BC Rail) and misdirected revenues. The latest misdirection of revenues is, of course, the Vancouver / Whistler Olympics which are set to take place in 2010. Forestry, along with other resource extraction and manufacturing industries, have sustained this province for over 100 years. Yet, at a time, when forestry is undergoing an unprecedented crisis, the provincial government for the next five years will be focused on a risky two week extravaganza that amounts to a gigantic subsidy for a number of large construction companies and tourist enterprises operating in Vancouver.

So representatives of this region have had to go cap in hand to both the provincial and federal governments and request funds to help the affected communities deal with the beetle disaster. What has been the response? The provincial government has tried to shift responsibility to the federal level by requesting a $1 billion dollar aid package, and the federal government has responded in kind by arguing that forestry is a provincial issue.

Both levels of government have pledged grossly inadequate funds so far. For example, the federal government has announced it will provide $100 million and the provincial government $50 million. The provincial NDP has proposed an all party committee to tour the province and get input from communities, as well as create a fund from the extra revenue being generated from the beetle kill wood. The provincial Liberals have rejected this proposal outright labeling it as “just rhetoric” and insisting that they have a plan in place, although some are saying that the plan is outdated because it was formulated in 2001 before the full impact of the beetle infestation was manifest. As part of their plan, the Liberals have supported the formation of beetle epidemic focused community coalitions which will act as “advisory committees” to the provincial government.

Now it can be argued that the both the NDP and Liberal initiatives have some merit. But there are deep underlying flaws also. The NDP idea to set aside funds from the beetle kill stumpage for communities to work with is heading in the right direction. But the problem is that it is more of an “ad hoc” proposal specific to the pine beetle infestation, rather than a recognition that provincial funding mechanisms have to change permanently, allowing communities in the Interior and North a defined share of all stumpage revenue (not just the pine beetle wood stumpage) in order to build up infrastructure, engage in economic development, etc. It is disgraceful that Northerners who produce so much for provincial and federal coffers should have to beg for funds.

The community coalitions that have sprung up also have some positive aspects to them, because with their formation, there is a recognition that Northerners know how best to deal with the beetle epidemic. However, these community coalitions are still largely advisory committees, with the final say remaining in Victoria. Northerners have a long and bitter experience with provincial advisory committees. Time and time again, we have participated in them, only to find out later that final decisions had already been arrived at in Victoria or Vancouver.

In the 1500s, Copernicus challenged the longstanding, but profoundly mistaken, view that the sun revolved around the earth. Today, we accept the idea that the reverse is true, that the earth revolves around the sun, and we marvel at how so many people could have been wrong for all those centuries leading up to Copernicus’s time. Today, there is another prevailing view that is just as wrong, namely that the provincial economy revolves around Vancouver and its service and tourist sectors. This view has been extremely harmful for the Interior and North, the main manufacturing and resources extraction areas of the province. Yet successive governments cannot see beyond it, and insist on controlling the forestry revenues generated from up here, diverting these revenues to non-productive or ill-advised projects in the Lower Mainland, as well as maintaining a highly centralized decision-making process which keeps Interior and Northern communities out in the cold.

It is clear that the existing political structures in the province discriminate against communities in the Interior and North. Not only is the government based in the Lower Mainland, so are the “main” political parties. What is to be done? We need political figures from here who recognize the economic power of the Interior and North, and its vital contribution to the provincial and federal economies, and who are not reluctant to say so. We also need new political structures and organizations that will help empower people and communities in rural areas, and allow them to flourish, rather than to be taken for granted and sucked dry. But these won’t come without a fight.

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