MLA Bob Simpson Speaks Out On Lumber Crisis

By Submitted Article

submitted by  Cariboo North MLA Bob Simpson

Quesnel, B.C. -   Eighteen months after the US housing market collapsed and we still don’t have a plan for assisting forest dependent communities and workers that are bearing the brunt of this unprecedented downturn in our forest sector. Eighteen months, thousands of jobs lost, dozens of communities impacted and not one penny has made its way to one forest worker.

There are no words to adequately describe this level of incompetence by both levels of government, but particularly the provincial government.

Worse yet, this market driven, permanent restructuring of the industry is taking place a mere few years before we’ll be forced to restructure because of the reduced cut levels as a result of the pine beetle infestation.

We must have a coordinated provincial-federal response to both these crises. One that helps us stabilize our forest dependent communities and retain our workforce so that when the industry is resurrected, in whatever form it takes, we have the workforce and the community infrastructure there to hasten its return.

For months now we’ve been calling on the government to sit down with communities and workers and find out from them what needs to be done and then fast track both community and worker strategies. We’ve also been asking the provincial government to put their money on the table to at least match the federal government’s recent $129 million that BC is getting from the so-called billion dollar community stability fund.

The recent Canfor announcement is potentially the beginning of another round of curtailments and job losses. We can’t afford to wait this incompetence out. I hope communities and workers will do what the people of Kamloops didyesterday and take to the streets to protest the government’s abject failure to support our forest industry.  

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