In response to Minister of Forest, Pat Bell

February 27, 2009

Letter to the Editor:

Forestry has been one of our area’s most important industries for most of the last century, but over the last eight years, the BC Liberals have presided over an unprecedented collapse of an industry that had previously survived many cycles of boom and bust.

There have been over 23 000 family supporting jobs lost, over fifty mills shut down and across the Province almost every business connected to forestry is in crisis.  All this has occurred under this government’s watch.

Almost every one of the government’s forestry initiatives has hurt workers and forestry dependent community.  Policy change after policy change has benefitted CEO’s of corporations but hurt those who actually work in the industry.

The Minister of Forest, Pat Bell, has first-hand knowledge of just how devastating this collapse can be on a forest-dependent community. Minister Bell is the MLA for the community of Mackenzie which once had half a dozen operating mills.  Now every one of those mills stands silent.

The Minister’s response to this crisis in his own community was that there was nothing government could do to protect forestry jobs or to assist forest-dependent communities in transition.  But Minister Bell did say he would try to arrange weekly flights out of Mackenzie to Fort McMurray so that people could go there to work while retaining their homes.

Minister Bell is wrong.  His government should have played a role in shaping forest policy over the last eight years; policy that could have made the industry more resilient and sustainable.  But instead, his government did nothing.

This province needs leadership on the forestry file but for that to occur we first need to elect a government that cares about forestry and cares about rural BC.  It is clear that Premier Campbell does not.

In my communities, the forest industry is vital to our economic health.  Dollars earned in the forest industry circulate through the local economy over and over.  I take the crisis in forestry seriously because I see the real consequences of this government’s inaction.

Like Minister Bell, I represent forest-dependent communities that are hurting.  Unlike Minister Bell, I will stand up and fight for the forest workers and communities that need real assistance through this very difficult time.

Norm Macdonald MLA

Columbia River – Revelstoke