Province Puts One Million Towards Forestry Roundtable

Friday, January 18, 2008 05:44 PM

As news of the latest round of layoffs sweeps over B.C., the Province has announced it will appoint a Working Roundtable on Forestry, conduct a review of government's forest regulations and provide new financial supports for forestry workers,.

Those are the highlights in a speech by Premier Gordon Campbell at the 65th Annual Truck Loggers Association Convention.

"We are going to work with industry, with communities, with labour and with other stakeholders to find mitigation and adaptation strategies that will ensure our forest industry survives and thrives in the decades to come," said Campbell. "Global warming, the pine beetle epidemic and increasing economic pressures are the kinds of challenges the Working Roundtable on Forestry will address. Together, we will ensure a strong, vibrant, sustainable forest industry in British Columbia for this generation, and for future generations."

The Working Roundtable on Forestry will be chaired by Forests and Range Minister Rich Coleman and include the Minister of Agriculture and Lands,Pat Bell, rural MLAs, forest industry representatives, including the TLA, First Nations, academics, organized labour, and environmental organizations.

The roundtable will undertake an exhaustive review of all facets of the forest industry and report quarterly to cabinet on ways to expedite workable improvements in that industry. It will meet in communities across British Columbia. The make-up of the roundtable will be announced within the next few weeks, along with its specific terms of reference.

"Forestry in British Columbia is a critically important industry, creating jobs and driving the economies in communities across the province," said Campbell. "This working roundtable will be charged with recommending a comprehensive, fiscally viable strategy aimed at making our forest industry the most competitive, successful and productive it can possibly be."

Along with the formation of the Working Roundtable on Forestry, Premier Campbell announced that government will work with labour and industry to provide help towards workers through the current restructuring.

* The Province will launch a full regulatory review of the Ministry of Forests and Range to streamline and reduce unnecessary red tape, cut processing time, and eliminate unnecessary cost burdens resulting from regulation. The Province is allocating $1 million for this review to be conducted in consultation with industry within the next 90 days.
* The Province will work with industry and labour representatives to develop new opportunities for older workers to bridge to retirement from the workforce if they wish.
* The Province will work with industry and labour to provide for training, skills and educational upgrades, for workers who are temporarily laid off, through new tuition fee assistance programs. Eligible courses will be determined by a committee made up of industry, organized labour, and the Ministry of Economic Development.
Training, skills and educational upgrades as well as retirement opportunities will be funded through the federal government's recently-announced $1-billion Community Development Trust, of which B.C. will receive about $129 million.

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Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 05:44 PM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: realitysetsin on January 18 2008 6:28 PM

Just politics. Can't hurt. But the problem is the Americans aren't building homes at the pace they were. The supply side needs capacity reductions.

Posted by: woodpecker on January 18 2008 8:21 PM

ohhhhh.... is that like going to a wake
sitting around quietly watching a corps while talking about "the good old days"
Sorry Mr Pemier should have done that long ago like 2002, or beter yet left it as you found it.
ohhhhh.... come to think of it ...should have the working roundtable set up in one of the non-working mills... lots to choose from!!!!

Posted by: seamutt on January 18 2008 9:56 PM

YAK YAK YAK YAK YAK YAK YAK. Any one care to guess how long it will take for talking to eat up 1 million.

Posted by: tinyapplecork on January 19 2008 12:01 AM

...apparently, 90 days.

"The Province is allocating 1 million dollars for this review to be conducted in consultation with industry within the next 90 days."

Politicians love to study everything to death....

Don't misunderstand, reviews are necessary but lengthy and expensive ones are nothing more than trying to fit a tiny bandage on a severed limb. Perhaps I'm ignorant of the science involved. It seems to me that we keep throwing millions and millions of tax dollars on studies and consultations to no avail.

Posted by: pisspulper on January 19 2008 7:43 AM

Exactly, for a case of beer, I would have said kill the damn stumpage fees and get out of NAFTA, sell our resources to the highest bidder, employing BC (Canadian) workers and owners. Ok, wrong channel, back to Hockey Night In USA. $999,975 richer.

Posted by: Northboy on January 19 2008 8:18 AM

Hmmm...

Let me get this straight...
We are not working because the US is not going to build houses or want too much wood in the next few years, therefore we're in the soup...

What else can we do with wood and wood fibre?
Alternate wood products
Biomass for fuel
Biomass for chemicals, tinctures, etc.
Pharmeceuticals
Activated charcoal (water filtration is big business and such technology also opens up the opportunity for environmentally responsible mining operations)
charcoal for fuel
carbon composite textiles (the auto industry would like a reliable supply of this at $7/KG. that's about $6800 / ton.

Oh, and what about other countries that might need houses??? I wonder how many that might be???

Sound to me like we've got a marketing problem....

Maybe a better solution for our region might be to look after our own marketing as it seems our problems are the result of lazy salesmen....

Posted by: Andyfreeze on January 19 2008 9:35 AM

The Campbell government likes "studies".
The term "working round table" is nothing more than a bunch of people sitting around expressing their personal opinions as they relate to their own interests.
And then as in most cases,their findings will be ignored and forgotten.
What they actually achieve remains to be seen.
I wonder why they never include the guys who actually saw and stack the lumber,drive the trucks,or fall the trees in these "round table" discussions?
Why is it always the elite who get to participate?

Posted by: realitysetsin on January 19 2008 10:26 AM

Northboy.

I've personally worked through the economics of a bioenergy plant.

Unless there is policy change, the economics just don't support it. There needs to be policy change (read: subsidy from govt) for it to work. Would you build a $200 million bioenergy plant based on economics that rely so heavily on policy?

Don't get me wrong, someone will do it, and policy will be changed.

Will be interesting, now that Talloil has been sold. (they were the ones who all talk no action with Pellet / Bioenergy plants in the Cariboo)

The other suggestions are probably good. They won't however replace the juggernaut that is the commodity lumber industry. Just won't happen.

Posted by: Northboy on January 20 2008 9:01 AM

realitysetsin,

With respect to bioenergy production, the debate appears to be over method of operation to my mind,

The first thought is to utilize wood residue for the production of electricity.
I've reviewed this also and essentially this is putting the participants in competition with the physics of the planet..In which case gravity wins.

My view on bio energy is to direct the attention from that rabbit trail to a marketing concept wherein we supply the "appliance" and the fuel as a package.

In my experience most wise manufacturers always look to divert part of their activities to move towards leasing their products. This creates a pool of wealth over time to ensude continual R&D for the "operating group".

Certain players in the forest industry could accomplish this through adopting a strategy of creating a power utility component to their buiness holdings. The strategy that deserves the most consideration in my view has hot water and steam as the power being sold.

This could lead to off oil strategies providing self sufficiency in such areas as logistics as well as many other applications as steam power is the only viable off the shelf technology that can be deployed rationally as an alternative to oil.

I know you're right, changes are needed in policies, and I'm sure changes are on the way.

Even after policies are changed, to really be able to create new industries based on wood residues, we will require new strategic thinking in our logistics in the working forest...Maybe even rail...

As for the other things, it just a list.

I'm sure if People dug around, the list would get a lot longer.

No one's even discussed the naval stores trade based on wood chemicals from pine trees.

To my mind the lumber industry isn't going anywhere, just another phase of consolidation, but consolidation leaves the residents in the cross fire, even if they've been warming up their seats for the big show in the circus since the last merger go round.

Whether any of alternative uses for wood is successful in replacing the current commodity flow infrastructure is debatable, but not exploring the alternatives should not be an option.

Posted by: vulcan on January 20 2008 8:02 PM

I agree with Andyfreeze, it should be the people that actually do the jobs, sitting at these round table meetings, as they are the ones that really no how things work, not the men or women in suits, that have never seen the inside of a sawmill, let alone work in one.