I often wonder why these important meetings never includes a worker(s) from the local mills etc. - I guess the "upper dogs" believe that their opinions/thoughts/concerns are not important - but they are the ones most affected when closures happened - not the top manangement!!

As I have said before End long hauling of logs. Carbon tax this pratice. The woods that these logs are comng from are not getting any closer to the mills and fuel will only get more expensive. Make it higher now and credit it back for updates to the older mllls in the areas enviorment.Pope&Talbot spent a milion dollars on kilns with no special tax break to reduced the amount of natural gas that it used. Carbon reduction cost savings,The use high end lubricants less friction less energy.Newer types of drive units and timers.Use the carbon tax for these up dates.It will not produce any more wood but it will save on the amount of energy used to produce it.These are only a few examples.If they want to long haul then let pay for costs that make more eviromental sense.

It would be a waste of time, woodwoman. Like this whole process. It's just something to put on a show to make people feel those in the 'know' are concerned, and doing something. (And they are~ they're busy 'roundtabling'! ~" Hey, when do we break for lunch? What's on the menu today? Steak and lobster again? ")

By the time they issue a report the crisis they were supposed to address will be either over, or so much worse, the recommendations will be moot anyways.

The 'real' problem isn't that there's no demand for wood anymore. That couldn't happen until EVERYONE in Noth America has a home ~ and the number of people that need one still seems to be 'increasing', not 'decreasing'.

It's simply that 'real demand' and 'EFFECTIVE demand' (ability to access credit enough to cover the 'costs', and subsequently repay it), are two very different things. But the 'roundtable' won't be looking at that. That's THE 'cause'. They're only there to talk about 'effects'.

I agree that it IS just a show put together by the government to APPEAR like they are concerned and doing something!
And while the government may not actually be able to FIX the problems as such,they could certianly be a lot more proactive than they are.
A bunch of guys with high opinion's of themselves are not going accomplish much other than a lot of talk, talk, talk.
It goes on and on and nothing much changes.
Get off your asses and get out there, where the problems and the people really are!

This round table is akin to the Gordon Campbell's "Conversation on Health". The Liberals hear nothing we say, and do what they were going to do in the first place.

The BC Liberals have done nothing for the working families of BC, so remember Tuesday May 12, 2009 to vote for the party that does suppoort working families of BC.

Has there been a new party formed in B.C. which would actually do that, rather than just go blah blah blah and sink the economy again?

What is its name?

Anybody seriously suggesting another round of NDP mis-management?

Wow!

Has anyone wondered how toyota became the number one auto maker in the world? I have 7 years of working as a tie for them.Because of my love of the north and the fact that I like to get dirty the last 20 years I have worked mainly under the canfor lets not share info way because it may show that I don't know anything and it is work to learn.Well the hold world now knows how much you know.Stop talking pull up your sleeves and get dirty.Some hard unpoplar things must happen.Did you know toyota management sit with hourly people for lunch and everyone parks in the same area no special privelages.Now lets see the pres of canfor living in Vanderhoff in the middle of the work.I don't think so.

The reason that the round table is closed is that most of the people who would like to have input have no knowledge of the issues or practices of forestry in BC. THere would be a lot of yelling and criticism of things that are quite besides tha point. The roundtable may not get a lot done but it would accomplish nothing to have a long stream of people standing up to rant against big business, management perks, the evils of clearcutting (and forestry in general) and forestries effect of the greenhouse effect. The problem these days is that we all want to put our 2 cents worth in on every issue (witness my know it all comments all over the site) even if we dont have the 2 cents worth in our posession.

invisableman: "Did you know toyota management sit with hourly people for lunch and everyone parks in the same area no special privelages."

They all wear the same coveralls. They all pull on the same rope in the same direction! Honda probably has the same management style. It works wonders.

Here in Canada labour union representatives should sit on the board of directors of each of these major companies, as is required by law in some European countries that I know of.

Usually workers here are *invited* to make sacrifices during hard times but are usually excluded from sharing during the better or best times.

It is a system based entirely on an adversarial mentality.

You are probably right but do you work as a blue collar in a in a industry that most people beleive only takes a grade 8 education to do.The problem is a lack of shared knowledge on the basics of the job.I have seen management spend thousands of dollars having students polish hand rails because they didn't have the knowledge to show them how,where,what to lock-out and did not want anyone to know that.Wasteful spending just to look good.As I said in a previous post look at Toyota example they shorten the hoses to elimante thousands of gallons of paint being flushed down the drains on change overs.This did not come from a tie it came from the guy who was cleaning the lines.Inco in sudbury paid its works up to $10000.00 in the 70's for performance and cost saving improvements.The one I remember is the wood washer on roof bolts where reduced by 1 inch.the cost savings where huge.One driller put $10,000.00.A lot that can be done can be done on the floors of these mills.Make a operators chair as comforable as the pres and the boards chairs because they are sitting at them for more hours than the managment are. start using commom sense and elimate the egos.I know that not all the problems are local.But if you can fix the stuff you do have control over the other problems will not seem to be as big.

The biggest problem with BC Forestry is that since 94% of our land base in Crown-our forestry practices are based on social forestry/policies not on a business approach to forestry- every govenment weather NDP or Liberal or SC over the last 5 plus decades has based it forestry policies on "social issues: - eg clause 7 in the TFL's requiring wood to be processed locally- all that did was make the coastal mills uncompetitive and the highest cost mills in the world- cut control is another social policy which has hurt our province- it is time we demand a business approach to forestry and abandon all the social experiments by different govenments.

I have said it before and I will say it again. It's not a question of 'saving an industry' but rather saving face.

Of course it's a show. It's just politic-ing, if that's a word.

There is no demand. Doesn't matter what we do here. Mills need to shutdown or demand needs to rise.

Realitysetin- is the very best post on any site I have seen- you have it right on- the round table, NDP 5 point plan, USW 10 plan etc- just politic-ing.