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A different downturn |
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Written by -- Editor Dave Paulson
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Monday, 12 May 2008 |
Everything about the current crisis in the forest industry suggests it is unlike any previous downturn.
People who live in forestry-dependent communities are familiar with the cycles: a couple years of good times are followed by a period of bad times, which are followed by good times, which give way to . . . and on it went.
Every slump was met with the expectation that it was a temporary thing and all would be well again in due course.
Until now.
A number of factors have conspired against the industry this time. The mountain pine beetle epidemic will have a long-term impact on B.C.'s timber supply; the home-construction downturn in the U.S. has crippled Central Interior lumber producers already jinxed by a strong Canadian dollar.
Troubles in sawmilling have inevitably spread to pulp mills, which depend on sawmills to supply wood chips.
The toll in lost jobs across B.C. since January 2007 is estimated at more than 11,000 -- between 3,000 and 4,000 of them in the central and northern Interior.
The latest casualties are Pope & Talbot's Harmac pulp mill in Nanaimo and its 300 jobs, and the bankrupt company's Mackenzie pulp mill, where 400 are off the job, perhaps permanently. Receiver PricewaterhouseCoopers is looking for a buyer for the two mills, but employees are expecting the worst.
That's the difference this time -- the quiet optimism that accompanied previous forestry downturns has been replaced with dreaded realization that those jobs are gone for good.
Workers are scared. For many it's the only job and only workplace they've ever known, so changing careers at this point is a frightening prospect.
A weekend event at the Prince George Civic Centre held by the United Steelworkers union drew hundreds of forestry workers looking for new career options and advice. That alone speaks volumes about the state of mind of workers in the forest industry.
Not all of them will be forced into a career change because the forest industry will not disappear in these parts. But it will look different.
The good thing is workers are preparing for the possibility that the job at which they expected to retire will be eliminated -- they're interested in learning new skills to make themselves more marketable, or looking to become their own boss.
Forestry workers all over B.C. are in the same boat.
The provincial economy will continue to rely heavily on forestry as its No. 1 industry. Premier Gordon Campbell said all the right things Friday in Prince George and Kamloops as he announced the distribution of federal money to help workers and forestry-dependent towns including Mackenzie and Fort St. James.
But it's money passed on to B.C. from Ottawa. The provincial government should put up a matching amount to help workers and towns adjust in a forestry crisis that is unprecedented.
-- Editor Dave Paulson
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Last Updated ( Monday, 12 May 2008 )
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