Editor's Note -- Weekly Quesnel City Council column by Quesnel Mayor Bob Simpson. He can be readched via email here
Missing in action in all the federal and provincial government announcements about relief and support programs for individuals and businesses during this COVID-19 pandemic is any word about how the forest sector will be assisted.
There’s been a lot of noise about the oil and gas sector, an economically and environmentally challenging industry even before this pandemic, but nary a peep about a sector that is renewable and can offer unique and timely solutions to address climate change, develop zero-waste products, and restore ecosystems.
As a forest-dependent community, we need to hear from the provincial and federal governments how they are going to directly assist the forest sector both in the short and long term. We also need more community support programs that are specifically related to the transition in the forest sector, a transition that pre-dates this COVID pandemic.
As a City, we’ve lost three sawmills and seen permanent reductions in other forestry operations. We’ve lost significant industrial taxation and had to shift that tax burden on to our commercial and residential ratepayers. Now, we don’t know what this current COVID-related collapse of global forest products demand will mean for our remaining operations: will it result in further mill closures, or will it accelerate the reinvention of this industry and see us realize more local investment in retooling the sector to achieve its full potential as a climate change, fossil fuel substituting, zero-waste leader?
While the oil and gas sector is using this pandemic to advance its demands for even larger and more direct taxpayer subsidies and reduced environmental regulations, the forest sector is quietly working with government to simply flex the programs being made available to all businesses at this time in an effort to help the sector get through this current market downturn and return to a sustainable financial footing when market demand returns. So far, the Federal government has only responded to the alarmist approach taken by the oil and gas sector.
As a Council, we continue to advance our Future of Forestry Think Tank initiative during this pandemic. We’ve had ongoing discussions with the Ministry of Forests and our First Nations and industrial partners about our potential community forest, we continue to work with these partners on the Landscape Planning Pilot that will hopefully see our forest landscapes rehabilitated in a manner that will create more resilient and adaptable ecosystems, and we continue to implement our Community Wildfire Protection Plan. We also continue to advance our research into alternative manufacturing opportunities that could see Quesnel’s forest sector attract strategic investments in the re-invention of our industry.
But, we need a much more deliberate and strategic intervention from the Federal and Provincial Governments. They need to ensure that our local mills can continue to operate through this pandemic, or, at the very least, assist the forest sector to support its workers through the wage subsidy program being offered to other businesses. We also need an immediate commitment to a Federal-Provincial-Industry collaboration to look at every opportunity to re-invent the forest sector so it can realize its full fossil-fuel substituting, climate change solution, zero-waste potential.
This pandemic is forcing us to rethink how we live and work. It’s forcing nations to re-examine their dependence on a globalized economy and supply chain. So, there’s no better time than now to accelerate our rethinking of the role that Canada and BC’s forest sector can play in providing sustainable solutions to a host of the issues we’re confronted with as a species. Hopefully, our provincial and federal leaders will wake up to this opportunity and help us seize the moment.
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