Forest Critic and MLA Ward Stamer asks, “Can Ravi Parmar convince his boss it’s essential to change how we access timber and fibre in this province?”

“…at this rate, no one is going to have a job in this industry because forestry will have completely collapsed.”

This week, the provincial government of NDP Premier David Eby made more announcements about their ‘so-called’ commitment to BC’s forestry sector. The problem, however, is that they’re still failing to address the very real problems at hand.

“They can make all of the announcements they want, including the latest, which the provincial government says will shift approval for special use permits from the ministerial level to district managers. This, they say, will make it easier for permit holders to carry out deactivation and remediation activities on Crown land,” stated Conservative forestry critic Ward Stamer

“To put it bluntly, ‘Big Deal’. What about speeding up the approval process for cutting timber, instead of it taking upwards of three years?”

While the NDP government promised mills they would have 45 million cubic meters of fibre this year, they are actually on target for less than 30 million.

To that, the Kamloops-North Thompson MLA responded, “That’s not enough fibre to keep the province’s sawmills running, and likely why we have to import wood chips from the US to keep our pulp mills running. We need significant changes in how we access fibre in this province, not just address backlogs after logging has taken place.”

While a new Forestry Innovation Investment office is being opened in the United Kingdom, Stamer asked a straightforward question that gets to the root of the problem:  

“Can Ravi Parmar convince his boss that it’s essential to change how we access timber and fibre in this province? This government must simplify the process, not expand the red tape and hope that press releases and photo-ops can paper over the crisis they created.”

“We need to be able to harvest fire-damaged fibre immediately, not years down the road. We need BC Timber Sales (BCTS) to do their job and deliver twenty percent of the Annual Allowable Cut (AAC), not a fraction of that.”

“And finally, we need leadership from this NDP government, not finger-pointing and blaming everything on Donald Trump.”

The economic collapse of the forest industry, which has been underway for a decade, was predicted a long time ago.

“That is why mills are closing and towns and families are suffering. And why, at this rate, no one is going to have a job in this industry because forestry will have completely collapsed.”, Stamer concluded.