The forest industry is near total collapse, states a B.C. Government Employees Union report that's calling on the provincial government to launch a commission of inquiry into the state of forestry.
The B.C. Government Employees Union (BCGEU) represents unionized workers in the forestry ministry, and issued the report after polling, discussions with its workers and several forums in a variety of communities, including Prince George.
"It's certainly a crisis to most of the families that live in those households [that have lost jobs]," said BCGEU president Darryl Walker.
"We're calling for some ideas that we believe will put communities back in play here."
But the B.C. Liberal government immediately dismissed the report as a political document, stating reality tells another story since numerous mills have restarted since the global recession and collapse in the U.S. housing market.
The call for an inquiry included a recommendation that field inspections be increased by restoring 2001 funding and staffing levels. The union has earlier been critical of cuts to the forests ministry.
There is also a call to enhance funding to compliance and enforcement, forest inventory, research and reforestation.
Also on the list of recommendations is a call to reform B.C.'s forest tenure system. Among the suggestions that came from forum participants was the expansion of community forest and smaller-based tenures.
The majority of long-term timber tenures are held by large forest companies like Canfor, West Fraser and Tolko in north and central B.C.
However, the B.C. Liberal government also clawed back timber rights from the big companies in the past decade, and redistributed them to communities, First Nations and a Crown agency that sells timber on the open market.
Other suggestion from the BCGEU forums include creating a revenue-sharing scheme from timber harvests with local communities. Another idea was to put forest management in local hands, through elected community boards.
Finally, the report called for tighter restrictions on raw log exports.
Jobs, Tourism and Innovation Minister Pat Bell said the recommendations seemed very similar to the NDP's platform on forestry, and highly political.
The NDP platform has called for tougher restrictions on raw log exports, updating timber inventories and tenure reform.
SIGNIFICANT HEADWAY MADE
Bell said while he's not saying the forest industry has fully recovered, it's clear that significant headway has been made in the past three years. It is even more remarkable given that the U.S. housing sector has not recovered, he said.
British Columbian, including the north-central lumber basket, has relied on the U.S. as its main market for years. Recently, B.C. had been ramping up exports to an emerging market in China.
Re-openings of closed mills, including Canfor's sawmill in Quesnel last year, have been linked directly to the Chinese market.
The union reports suggests that 33,000 jobs have been lost and 70 mills closed in the past decade in B.C.
While some sawmills have been closed permanently in northern B.C. in the past decade -- including in Prince George, Fort St. James, Mackenzie and Quesnel -- others have been restarted. Those also include mills in Fort St. James, Mackenzie, Chetywnd, Prince George and Quesnel.
"We need to find ways to take the politics out of forestry," said Bell, "and I think unfortunately this report doesn't achieve that objective."
