STAMER: Is it going to take a year? Two years? Five years, to get to 45 million cubic metres of ‘economically viable’ fibre?

This morning, I came across a news article with concerns and comments from Powell River Mayor Ron Woznow, about the forest industry getting enough fibre – especially, ‘at least 45 million cubic metres of economically viable fibre for the 2025 calendar year.’

His concerns, echo what everyone else is saying.

First the provincial government gave us “the promise of 45” -- then it was “the drive to 45” – and now, apparently, it’s “the path to 45”.

Really, are we even going to get close to 45?  The budget from BC’s Finance Minister says 30 … so really? How are they going to get to 45? 

There’s no plan, no real engagement, no business support, no nothing … and no path forward to get there.

Woznow also went on to say that 'economic activity isn’t occurring because of the significant addition of regulations. It affects small businesses, it affects contractors, and so this motion is to let the minister of forests know that there is an opportunity to move forward and to have faith in the chief forester.'

Is it going to take a year? Two years? Five years, to get to 45 million cubic metres of ‘economically viable’ fibre?

The reality is, and as we said as a party, we need to be able to determine, with our First Nations, with our community forests, with our licensees, on exactly what is sustainable.  And where are we going to be able to actually harvest on a regular basis? 

Not only that, but we’re going to be including fuel reduction across the province.

Forest Minister Ravi Parmar has agreed, on the record, that we should be removing trees in all areas of the province, including protected areas. He’s already on record saying that.  We all know that we need to protect our forests and provincial parks, and our protected areas -- so, what’s the comprehensive plan?

Let me ask this.  In Revelstoke, BC Timber Sales just took out available fibre for Caribou habitat, but we don’t actual know how much land will be taken out.  Again, to say you’re going to get to 45, but then you keep removing these areas from being harvested, what are we going to have left?

We have to really be able to sit down and come up with a province-wide plan, not just a band-aid solution because a band-aid solution is making it harder and harder for us to have a sustainable forest industry.

Sweden has a sustainable model that harvests over 100 million cubic metres of timber a year, on a land mass smaller than BC! And we can only do 30? That just shows the mismanagement that this NDP government has done to our forest industry over the past eight years.

We’ve gone from logging 50 million cubic metres to just 30. We’ve lost a third of forestry jobs in the past forty-eight months. And in that same time period the provincial treasury has lost seventy-five percent of direct revenue it previously received from the forest industry.

That’s shocking! 

It’s not just global and it’s not just the threat of tariffs. It’s the mismanagement, by this NDP government, of what once was one of the main drivers of BC’s economy, that’s got us to this place.

We’re going to end up this whole province, and the next thing you know, it’s going to be on fire because we’re not addressing forest health, we’re not addressing climate change, we’re not addressing the risks that are associated with communities and people living near forests.

We are moving head with some wildfire fuel mitigation, but interface fires are going to occur because we have fuel everywhere.

We need a comprehensive approach, not only for fuel reduction, but also for the long-term sustainability of our forest industry, and the people that it employs.

Again, there are other jurisdictions (Sweden just being one) with better track records than we have, and they’re able to harvest three times the amount of fibre from their land base than we are.

Why is that? 

Again, I have to say it’s because of mismanagement.

There’s no confidence in this government; there’s no confidence in this forest minister, and there’s no confidence in going forward with these guys.

That’s why we need a new perspective and a new approach on this - one with a full partnership with our First Nations, and our communities. We can't continue to say it’s going to be done -- we have to actually do it.

If we don’t act quickly we will end up with devastating consequences; not only to our forest industry, but also from forest fires because we have failed to address the root issues.