I do believe that you will have to do some more fact checking on this point for sure!
It was in fact the NDP gov. that changed the forestry sector for the worse to form what we now have today!
The big timber companies, in order to have access to our crown land timbers, had to own and operate sawmills withing a reasonable distance to the tenured timber stands, (this was to create employment opportunities throughout our province). The NDP just before the end of their last reign, changed the wording in the written laws, and the large timber companies no longer needed to have the sawmills in order to harvest and export the timber. One only needs to travel the island to see the results (well you will have to talk to the long term residents, because, well,,,, the sawmills are completely gone now in many of our communities.) Visit Youbo, Chemainus, Nanaimo, Port Alberni, Courtenay, Campbell River, this all adds up to a lot of jobs across the island, and yes we have the NDP to thank for this! Guess what, most of these communities have seen tax increases because of the loss of major industry tax payers, that payed large tax bills to the communities in order to do business there, and because they were there, so were many other support businesses that also payed their fair share, but lots of them are also gone now. ALL THANKS TO THE F'N NDP!
I find it truly amazing how soon people forget the happenings of the past - or do most choose to selectively remember?
You are absolutelt correct, but the liberals ran with that and opened the door further.
Here are a few examples.
The BC Liberal government in general has supported and defended the large scale liquidation of old-growth forests across most of BC, deregulated numerous forestry laws that protected the environment and jobs, facilitated the massive expansion of raw log exports to foreign mills, and oversaw the net demise of over 30,000 BC forestry jobs and the closure of over 70 mills in BC.
Some policies and positions they’ve undertaken:
Supported and defended the continued large-scale liquidation of old-growth forests across most of BC.
Have repeatedly engaged in PR-spin to make it seem that old-growth forests are not endangered. They have repeatedly included millions of hectares in their PR stats of marginal, low productivity old-growth forests of stunted trees in bogs, on rocky slopes, and at high altitudes generally of non-commercial value, along with the productive old-growth stands (ie. the “ancient forests”) of commercial value, to inflate the statistics of remaining old-growth forests.
Deregulated vast areas of forest lands on Vancouver Island and the Sunshine Coast by removing Tree Farm Licences from corporate private forest lands. This resulted in the removal of Old-Growth Management Areas, Ungulate Winter Ranges, and Wildlife Habitat Areas that formerly protected old-growth forests, many of which are now being logged. It also resulted in the removal of prohibitions against real estate development and raw log exports on those lands.
Have opened up scenic protections, known as Visual Quality Objectives, in vast regions of the province that protected old-growth and mature forests for the tourism industry.
Are proposing to open up Old-Growth Management Areas, Wildlife Habitat Areas, Ungulate Winter Ranges, Recreation Areas, and Visual Quality Objectives in the Central Interior for logging.
Vastly increased the Allowable Annual Cut, the total harvest level for BC, to vastly unsustainable rates at almost 80 million cubic metres per year over the past decade.
Issued countless log export permits from Crown forest lands, so that today almost 6 million cubic metres of raw logs are being exported to foreign mills. They have ignored their own advisory committee’s advice, the Timber Exports Advisory Committee, to not allow the export of raw logs from northern Vancouver Island but instead to ensure they go to BC sawmills.
The weakened forest practices regulations on both Crown and private forest lands.
Within BC’s 95 million hectares of land, they did substantially increase old-growth protections in a roughly 8 million hectare portions of the coast. In the Central and North Coast, Haida Gwaii, and Squamish District, they expanded old-growth protections significantly through new Provincial Conservancies, as well as regulatory protections in the Central and North Coast and Haida Gwaii. This was done under First Nations pressure and threat of boycotts by Greenpeace and ForestEthics in international markets.
They have created regulatory protections on about 2 million hectares of high elevation mountain caribou habitat, much of which is of low or no commercial value, but also excluded much of the low elevation forests from protection.
They’ve continued establishing Old-Growth Management Areas (OGMA’s) through land use planning processes as originally established by the NDP government of the 1990’s. However, they dragged out these processes for over a decade, allowing prime old-growth forests to be logged in the meantime. Much of these Old-Growth Management Areas have been placed within existing parks, in low productivity old-growth forests, and the designation itself in some regions has loopholes that allows for forest destruction to continue within some OGMA’s.
Personally i wouldn't vote for either of them especially now that the NDP are flipflopping on the ISA virus and doing anything about it. I think their latest is that they will support whatever dfo decides and does and that is nothing and more of the same. Both parties have the same masters and are bought and paid for.
