RUSTAD: Entire harvestable stands, including millions of cubic metres of fire-damaged, salvageable timber, are being left to rot while BC forestry workers get pink slips

BC’s forest communities are on life support. Families are losing jobs, mills are shuttering, and entire towns are being hollowed out. And now, with another punishing softwood lumber tariff slapped on by the U.S., the bleeding has gone from slow to catastrophic.

Premier David Eby calls it an “existential crisis” and wants the prime minister to declare a national emergency.

Here’s a better idea: How about the premier stops being the emergency?

For eight years, the BC NDP has dismantled the foundation of our forest industry. They have made it harder to cut, harder to haul, harder to process, and harder to survive. Now Eby is running to Ottawa and blaming the Americans while ignoring the damage his government has already done.

Let’s be clear. The forest industry is not collapsing because of one more tariff. It is collapsing because this government has gutted it from the inside.

Since the NDP came to power, the allowable annual cut has been slashed in half. 

Permitting delays stretch up to three years. 

Entire harvestable stands, including millions of cubic metres of fire-damaged, salvageable timber, are being left to rot while workers get pink slips.

Want to see it for yourself? 

Drive east on the Trans-Canada and turn off near Chase. Cross the Skwlax bridge. That is where the Adams Lake fire tore through in 2023. On the First Nations land, the charred timber was harvested quickly and responsibly. 

Just metres away, on Crown land, the trees still stand. Dead. Wasted.

That timber could have gone to the local plywood plant. It could have fed pulp mills. It could have created renewable energy and kept families working. Instead, it is being left to collapse into salmon streams because Eby’s government will not issue a permit.

This is what NDP forest policy looks like in real life. Rotting trees, shuttered mills and empty paycheques.

Eby’s approach is like a farmer pulling stones from a dam to build goat pens and fireplaces, only to act surprised when the dam bursts and the farm floods.

That is not leadership. That is negligence.

Eby and the NDP have ignored every warning from foresters, loggers, mill workers, mayors, First Nations, and industry leaders. Now they are standing in the flood and blaming the storm.

The worst part is that this did not need to happen. BC has the people, the resources, and the expertise to lead the world in sustainable forestry. But the NDP would rather let jobs disappear than admit their policies are broken.

And they are broken by design. This government does not view our forest industry as something to champion. They treat it as a problem to be managed through decline and into extinction. That is why we get more photo ops than permits. 

More announcements than action. More lectures than leadership.

If Eby wants to talk about national emergencies, he should look in the mirror. Because this crisis was not dropped on us by the Americans. He built it right here in BC, one reckless policy at a time.

It is time for Eby to stop making excuses. Stop blaming everyone else. It’s time to stand up for forest workers, communities, and the families who have always stood up for BC.