B.C. Forests Minister Katrine Conroy wants people and communities reeling from mill shutdowns that reduced incomes and cast doubt on their economic outlooks to know the province cares about them and is trying to come up with workable solutions to see them through the rough times they are now encountering.
The government has formed a task force known as the Forestry Worker Supports and Community Resiliency Council to provide advice on how to support the province’s 55,000 forestry workers by improving existing programs and spur development of innovative new initiatives to keep people working.
“We need it because we want to make sure we’re getting input and advice, just talking to people who have representation throughout the province around issues with forestry,” said Conroy. “It’s making sure we’re hearing from people that are on the ground, out in the province doing that work.
“There’s been some real challenges for rural communities because we’ve had severe wildfire seasons and it’s been a rough few years with flooding events, the whole issues with COVID, and the reductions of timber supply. We want to support workers but also support rural communities and diversify their local economies if need be.”
The purpose of the council is to build resiliency in communities to insulate them from the boom-and-bust cycles of the forestry industry. In response to diminished timber supplies, which prompted a policy shift from high-volume harvesting to high-value production, the government is trying to stimulate more value-added secondary wood product manufacturing to get the most out of every tree.
The lack of available timber has forced several sawmills in the region to eliminate shifts and/or curtail their operations with temporary closures and pulp and paper mills are also feeling the effects. Canfor’s Intercontinental pulp mill in Prince George is nearing the end of at two-week curtailment precipitated by a lack of fibre and two other mills, in Crofton and Quesnel, are facing similar temporary closures.
“You’re always worried about what’s happening when you have curtailments and potential shutdowns, it’s a tough one,” said Conroy. “We want to make sure that, working together, we can come up with initiatives that can ensure we keep people employed, whether its looking at skills training for potentially new job pathways or getting people who have worked in a mill or years a trade so they can continue working in the sector.
“We’ve already had conversations with communities that are very forestry-dependent and are worried and how they can look at economic diversification. We actually have funding to help industry innovate and keep their industry in the community, but actually do something different. We just want to make sure people aren’t affected by what’s happening in the province in a negative way.”
Most of the province’s value-added forest product manufacturers depend on sawmills to provide materials used to make their products and do not have their own timber tenures, which makes it difficult for them to attract new investment. But, as indicated in the province’s forestry intentions report released a year ago, those fibre access provisions are in the works and Conroy says the province is looking into ways to minimize burning of slash piles and making that waste wood available to secondary manufacturers and biofuel producers.
The NDP government announced in September 2020 a deferral of 196,000 hectares of old-growth forest in nine areas and regulated protection of 1,500 exceptionally large trees, but critics say the province is not doing enough to protect biodiversity and existing logging practices are permanently destroying species habitat. Conroy says that threat to animal and plant life is being addressed with its forest landscape plans, working with First Nations, which takes back control of forest operations from the private sector.
“We’re not just looking at the tree as a commodity, we want people to look at the entire ecosystem and look at how it affects wildlife and how it affects water systems,” she said. “It’s making sure that we have a new way of looking at biodiversity in the forest and people are coming on board with that. We’ve got a few pilot projects going on across the province, bringing communities and Indigenous nations together. Getting that Indigenous knowledge is critical.
“It is an issue. There are some areas where there’s an abundance of moose and some areas where there’s not and it depends where you are in the province. But we’ve got to take care of the wildlife as much as we take care of the forest.”
The 18-person committee will be chaired by Nanaimo-North Cowichan MLA Doug Routley, Parliamentary Secretary for Forests, and includes members of local government, First Nations communities, forest industry and labour representatives, academics and non-governmental organizations.
Prince George will be represented by Lori Forgeron, owner/president of Workforce Development Consulting Services North, who will offer her expertise on workforce trends and responding to the needs of employers and workers. Dolores Funk, the former mayor of Burns Lake, and Bob Simpson, the former mayor of Quesnel and a former Cariboo MLA.
The committee will meet for the first time in early November in Victoria.
