Pretty soon you won't be allowed to leave your home without a permit and your papers in order.

The issue of privatizing crown forest land is a deep one as it is a defining issue of how the People see the development of the province. Crown forests can either be viewed as a legacy for future generations, providing a source of economic wealth in perpetuity (sustainably managed of course)with which the People can look for opportunity with some certainty or in its current state, a possible drain on the public purse due to its current need of rehabilitation.

If the view is taken that forest land should be in part privatized, we are led down the trail previously trod by most of Europe and the US,of private land and no tresspassing signs...

If the view that a rehabilitated public working forest prevails, this will lead to the forest being viewed as a shared legacy of the wealth of the common...

In this question, as well as many others we face in the region, the decision we make and the path we choose to follow will have far reaching effects on the fabric and function of our society...

I pray we choose well....

Who says politicians don't have hidden agenda's?
This just shows where their interests really lie.
Privatize crown land and it will be gone and it has already begun to happen.
Have we figured out what the Campbell government is all about yet?
Nothing more than political greed and nothing more!
Are we actually stupid enough to buy into this load of crap?

How does Bob Simpson propose to "break the monopoly of the large tenure holders" when his Party has never recognized what caused that monopoly to develop in the first place?

If small tenure holders could make a decent PROFIT from their operations, and they were truly 'sustainable', why would there ever be any incentive for them to sell out to any larger orgainization only interested in their tenure?

Isn't billionaire investment guru Warren Buffet's advice to "buy, hold, and prosper"? Which is good advice, (except, in Buffet's mind, it's aimed at the 'monopolist', and not the 'free-enterpriser'.)

And, in the long run, with there being a permanent systemic 'flaw' in the present method of cost-accountancy as it relates to money itself in the OVERALL economy, neither the monopolist nor the free-enterpriser will ever truly prosper.

Inflation is continually eating both of them, (and all of us), alive. Though to the monopolist it initially seems as if his fortune is secure. (Just watch what happens when he can no longer 'grow', though!)

The NDP is as blind as the Liberals when it perceives a rise in prices (of anything) to be a sign of prosperity. Higher prices are a sign of inflation, and if anyone can tell me how ANY of us are ever benefitted by paying MORE for all the things we require to live, I'd be most interested to hear it.

Neither the NDP nor the Liberals, nor anyone else, can ever solve the problems that develop from corporate concentration until they begin to understand how 'money'itself, and 'prices represented in money', are increasingly divergent in their relationship with one another over time. That's the root cause of it.

The NDP is blinder, in one regard, in that it does not even understand what PROFIT really is, and attacks it as the great 'evil'. While a far greater 'evil'~ the growing difference between 'prices' and 'purchasing power'remains completely unnoticed. Wipe out every profit; outlaw, or tax away every dollar called profit, and it would still be so.

Even if Simpson's party were to revert to its doctrinaire socialist roots, and nationalised the whole of BC's forest industry, so long as the current overall accounting flaw remains uncorrected, virtually all of the present problems with everyone trying to get a living off it 'financially' would remain unsolved. What's entirely 'physically'possible will always remain 'financially' impossible.

"Forest Critic Bob Simpson says it is disturbing the Campbell government doesn’t recognize the impact his privatization agenda is already having on forest-dependent communities."

I FIND IT DISTURBING THAT THE NDP WOULDN'T ALLOW LOGGING IN TWEEDSMUIR PARK, OR 25 CENT STUMPAGE WHEN THE PINE BEETLE OUTBREAK FIRST STARTED.

HOW IS THAT IMPACTING FOREST DEPENDENT COMMUNITIES MR SIMPSON?

A very good question realitysetsin!
One that is avoided at all times by all polticians whenever the MPB issue is mentioned!
And the NDP always forgets that they dropped the ball way back when they could have made a difference!
They ALL screwed this up!

The NDP is officially in total denial as far as allowing the pine beetle infestation to spread beyond the point of no return.

They quote a bunch of NDP friendly experts who say that nothing would have made any difference, although scientist from the ministry of forests urged the NDP government to take swift and drastic action, to no avail.

Why is Alberta making a determined effort to control and possibly halt the MPB from moving east?

If the MPB can be contained just one winter of prolonged -40 degrees temperature would make a huge difference.

Visit the David Suzuki website and find his stories on the MPB outbreak. According to him there is nothing wrong with the mountain pine beetle killing off these vast tracts of trees.

The only thing that is wrong (according to him) is our reaction to mother nature doing its normal thing.

This is easy for him to say because he doesn't depend on the forests for a living.

David Suzuki is a duck farting in shallow water!
He has become very wealthy by feeding on peoples insecurities about the world around them.
Whether or not he has actually done anything and made a difference, is debatable!
The fact that he makes such a statement knowing that peoples livelihoods depend on forestry is ignorant.
And does he have a solution for the problem that would put food on the table?

I would rather see the forests remain in the hands of the people, that's where they belong.