International Trade Minister Ed Fast believes Thursday's federal budget will help B.C.'s forest industry retool and be more competitive internationally.
Fast pointed to the $92 million forest industry transformation fund, which will be spent over the next two years as one way the forest sector benefited from the budget.
"[The fund] continues to help that industry transform itself not only in terms of productivity but also in terms of innovation," he said in a phone interview in Vancouver. "Our B.C. forestry companies can actually use innovation to drive the creation of unique products which are going to carve niche markets all around the world."
The budget also included an extension of a program which allows manufacturers to write off the costs of machinery upgrades more quickly. Fast said more than 25,000 businesses have already taken part and by extending it for two years will help companies deal with the competitiveness gap created by the strong Canadian dollar.
"Canadian businesses have woken up and realized, listen we have to work on being more efficient and more productive," Fast said. "If they invest in equipment or machinery that is going to allow them to be more productive, they can write off those capital costs on a more aggressive schedule."
The measures got approval from both industry groups and even the Official Opposition.
Forest Products Association of Canada president and CEO David Lindsay said the fund as well as the will help the industry innovate and expand its markets. Skeena-Bulkley Valley NDP MP Nathan Cullen acknowledged that the extension of accelerated cost allowance was a good thing which could help heavy industry in the region, although he criticized the budget in a host of other economic grounds ranging from job creation to the deficit projections.
Meanwhile, provincial NDP finance critic Bruce Ralston said the budget will cost B.C. $6 billion over 10 years because of a new formula the federal government plans to use to calculate health transfers.
Fast said the changes won't come into effect this year and pointed to figures showing B.C. is getting $2 billion more now than it did in 2006.
"I do know that we've recognized that going forward, beyond 2014, that healthcare increases of six per cent a year are unsustainable," Fast said. "Especially when our inflation rate is somewhere in the order of one per cent."
