NDP forestry critic, NDP MLA to hold public meeting on state of industry

By GERRY WARNER
Townsman Staff

October 3 2008

NDP provincial forestry critic Bob Simpson and Columbia River – Revelstoke MLA Norm Macdonald are in Cranbrook tonight to speak at a public meeting about the crisis in the province’s forest industry.

Simpson, who represents the forest-dependent region of Cariboo North, says the meeting will focus on solutions to problems in the devastated industry.

“More than 14,000 jobs have been lost from the industry since the beginning of 2007,” said Simpson.  “Yet this industry is critically important to communities like Revelstoke, Golden, Radium, Canal Flats, Kimberley and Cranbrook.”

The timing of Simpson’s visit is less than a week after an announcement by Tembec Inc. that it will be cutting sawmill production in mills in the East Kootenay and Ontario because of declining lumber prices and the collapse of the US housing market.

The mills at Elko and Canal Flats will be shut down for one week each in October and November, which will lead to lower output at the company’s finger-joint operation in Cranbrook in October and November.

Simpson said its shut-downs like these that are causing so much havoc in forest-dependent communities throughout the Interior of BC.  Despite this, the government has taken little, if any action, he said.

“Forest communities are waiting for the Campbell government to offer some real solutions to ensure the long-term viability of the industry that helped to build this province.” Simpson said.  “We haven’t seen any solutions from the BC Liberals, just a round-table discussion.”

Simpson is visiting a series of communities throughout the BC Interior this fall to hear from British Columbians on the state of the forest industry.  Macdonald said he’s glad Simpson is visiting Kimberley and Cranbrook.

“I’m looking forward to having Bob Simpson in this area, sharing the NDP’s five-point forestry plan.  Forest workers in my area tell me that the industry is in crisis and the Campbell government is doing nothing to protect forest workers.”

Under its five-point plan, a NDP government would create a green plan for provincial forests, including a comprehensive assessment of resources, create a community and worker stability program, establish a permanent commission on forestry and embark on softwood lumber and tenure reform.  Meanwhile former Cranbrook resident Bob Matters, chairman of the United Steelworkers Wood Council, said the forest industry in BC is also suffering from the Softwood Lumber Agreement negotiated by the federal Conservative government almost two years ago.

“Everyone knows it was an awful deal.  After all, it raised the penalty for exporting lumber to the US from a combined rate of 10.8 per cent to 15 percent and it also hit Canada with a so-called ‘surge mechanism’ designed to discourage investment in Canadian mills.”

Adding insult to injury, Matters said the deal also handed a half billion dollars to US producers that brought on the softwood lumber war against Canadian producers in the first place.

“On top of all this, Canada was inches away from winning the (soft-wood) dispute before the World Trade Organization, NAFTA and the US courts,” said Matters.  “So n wonder they (the forest industry) are howling.  I’d howl too if I were a forest company CEO…

Matters said Canada was ‘sold out’ by politicians on the softwood lumber deal, including BC Premier Gordon Campbell and Conservative Trade Minister David Emerson and this is only adding to the pain being felt by workers in the industry now.