BC Liberals PLanning Quick Forest Giveaway Before Election...Your Access Threatened !

(Originally posted on DSBC - reposting here as this is a timely and critical issue !)

"As a member of the BC public, be alarmed. As a camper,
hiker, fisher, off-road rider, quadder, or outdoor enthusiast, be VERY
alarmed.

This isn't hyperbole; it IS JUST what it says on the tin. Ben
Parfitt of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has just written an
article in The Province that details the BC Liberal Party's plans to give the
provincial cabinet powers to grant forest compatines de facto private control
over public forests without first having to consult with or even notify the
public.

http://blogs.theprovince.com/2013/0...-liberals-are-planning-a-b-c-forest-giveaway/

Don't
think this can happen? Well it already has on Vancouver Island. The forest
companies have been given much of the Crown Land in the south and central
island. It's not crown land. Last summer in Nanaimo, the Nanaimo River Road gate
was locked from May on. It is still locked. There is no access allowed to vast
tracts of previously accessible land. It's so bad the Fisheries are no longer
stocking lakes in the area as access is difficult for them and, besides, no one
is allowed access to fish. So why stock the lakes?

Now the push is on
for the rest of the island and province to follow suit.

And the BC
Liberals are not wasting any time for the election; they are getting this done
before May by "introducing a two paragraph bill granting it powers to
fundamentally alter the course of forestry in B.C."

Parfitt's article
goes on to describe how forest companies will no longer just enjoy the right to
log set volumes of trees on public forestlands, but now they will gain
dramatically expanded powers to log trees on defined areas of crown land that in
effect become their own semi-private kingdoms. Not only that, stumpage fees
would be minimal to the province, and once these Tree Farm Licenses are granted,
the province cannot take back the land without paying huge compensation payouts
to the companies. And TFL can be traded to companies who have no interest in
your children's economic or environmental welfare, or your community's access to
the British Columbia back country.

Why are they doing this? Because the
companies say there isn't enough timber on their own lands to log any more. Why?
Well the government has faced mounting criticism over a forest health crisis due
to decades of over-cutting and the pine beetle attack. Numerous saw mills face
closure in many rural communities, but could that have anything to do with
exporting raw logs to China, Japan and other markets do you suppose? Logging
companies have failed to replant adequately on government land: that's not a
rumour; it's fact, as reported early last year - this government has the worst
record of enforcing it's own rules on the private logging companies.


This was tried by a government 25 years ago, but it was scuttled because
of a public outcry. Now they're trying again: quietly. It may be a different
party (BC Liberals rather than the SoCreds), but many of the people - and
private owners who mean to benefit from this, remain the same individuals they
always were.

Read the article and spread the word: NO! No for our access;
no for our children's heritage; no for the environment, and no to undemocratic
raping of the public purse for private corporate interest. NO."

Soooo glad I left that province. Gordo mangled it up good. You guys will be paying for the Olympics for decades.

Make your vote count.
Southern Vancouver island is already ruined, with respect to access.
Do you think that the forestry companies are practicing responsible forestry behind closed doors?

If the rumours are accurate,the changes to legislation would not affect public access to Crown land. It's all about rights to cut timber; a response to the mountain pine beetle epidemic. This may or may not be seen as a good idea but it has nothing to do with access for recreation purposes.

Most of southern vancouver island was given to the governor or BC as part of the confederation deal.
It has been private land since then.
So when you talk about the nanaimo river valley for example, be sure you know what you are talking about. I don't think it has been crown land for as long as canada has been a country.

I believe the provincial government owns a good portion of those so called private timberlands {Island Timberlands, Timberwest} and part of their management scheme is to close out the public... Farther up the Island the land still belongs to the crown so most is still easy access up to a point...

What bugs me is the practice of 7 day a week logging that is going on in the rush to export our raw logs to China... In the old days the weekends used to be the access days for the recreational users to use the campsites, go hunting, fishing and general backroad exploring with out the threat of being crushed by a logging truck... Part of the deal to hold a forest area tenure licence was that the forest companies were to maintain the rec sites and campgrounds with this weekend recreational use in mind as well as running sawmills and pulp mills to provide local employment...

Well look at it now, the pulpmills and sawmills are closed, the camp and rec sites go unmaintained and grow over and the trees are disappearing off these lands at an alarming rate while providing no secondary industry jobs... The companies still get all the trees, but do not have to provide those local area jobs or do much for recreational users like in the past... It's all about the bonanza now, the quicker they load the ships going out the more profit...

We can talk about wanting our BC sawmills to be hard at work, but who's buying the lumber?? And in the meantime, if you can cut down a 60 year old forest, sell those trees to the Asian market, and then plant another forest, why wouldn't we.

A few of the mills that were shut down here in the northern interior are running again. Our primary market remains the US market and it will stay that way for the forseeable future.

The problem with giving away raw logs...or any raw resource is that very few people here in Canada actually benefit from it. We'd be much further ahead if we could develop the industries that utilize the raw resources better and then sell the finish product to the markets that need them. Oil, minerals, wood.....you name it....we'd be better off producing something here in Canada rather than sending it overseas and then buying it back at a greatly increased price.

+1000.
Some will say that our labour costs are too high if we make our raw materials into finished products and no one will buy. They'll buy if they can't get the raw materials!!
Add value or in the case of oil or natural gas, just leave it where it is, it's not going to go bad is it.
Why are we in such a rush to sell non-renewable resources? They'll only increase in value when no one else has any.

What I see going on now with the 60 yr old trees is the machine cuts them down and snips out a stem, maybe 2/3rds of the tree and the remaining 1/3rd and the small trees are thrown aside .... Then the stems are hoechucked into a roadside pile where a self loading logging truck loads them up to run them to the ocean where they are gathered and loaded onto a ship bound for China... Not too many jobs provided out of these 60 yr old trees, but wait there are a few more, another hoe works on the 1/3 rd and the small trees that were thrown aside... He stacks them into huge haystack pile and then a couple more jobs are provided to burn those piles... Real good practices, where you burn 1/3 of the trees you harvest...

That's only the beginning, as at the rate they are logging these second growth stands they will run out not too many yrs down the road... Then what? Switch to 40 yr stands? And then 30? And then toothpicks? For now the current forest practices do provide raw extraction jobs for those workers who suffered through the downturn a couple years back, but it does not look to be a long term fix...

Then the other angle is why not mill the logs up here and ship the lumber to China? Maybe, but China is too smart for that, they know that the corporations that control Canada's resources will jump at the chance to ship out huge volumes of these resources in their rawest form... It means quick profits for the corporate shareholders...

The Government goes along with all this as they get their token royalty which they welcome because they are broke... They continually scheme on how tap into more of the resources and get them out to China... The problem is that China is getting more employment off our resources than Canadians are... If they don't have have a mill or factory to handle a resources, one is soon built... Meanwhile another one on this side of the pond shuts down...

This raw resource boom has created a vacuum ... With the amount of resource extraction projects on the go they are running out of laborers to man them, so instead of slowing down on these projects and get into more sustainable labor, the government is encouraging the practice of bringing in foreign workers to keep the taps flowing... I feel sorry for the future generations as I don't think there will be much left for them...

Good to hear that at least some of you do care about Canadian jobs. That's why I don't shop at Walmart for example and I do whatever I can to support Canadian jobs by buying Canadian, whenever possible. And you're right, the "corporations" and the government are doing nothing to help us.
Everyday we make choices and everyday we pay the consequences of those choices. After all, we still have the power to force change. The big boys know that and that's why 95% of the population (let's call these the "sheeple") are being programmed and dumbed down everyday and they do exactly what they're told to do...... "Save money live better" ..... my ass.

It must be tough to back yourself into a corner as a consumer. No Walmart, Home Depot, Safeway, Sears, The Bay, Zellers, Target, Costco, UAP/NAPA, McDonalds, Wendy's, Chevron, Esso, Shell, General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, Labatts, Seagrams, Terasen Gas, Canadian Pacific, Noranda Mines, Alcan, Tim Hortons, CCM, Bauer, Cooper, CN Rail, etc, etc, etc, all forgein owned companies within Canada, selling, buying, employeeing.

Honestly you guys, you should listen to yourself. You basically do not want any resource extraction,,admit it. You want us to just sit here with our VAST wood, gas, oil, minerals,,,,all needed to gain royalties to pay for "expected entitlements" by,,,,you guys, and just do nothing with it. Our lumber jobs left when the successfull unions negotiated fantastic contracts, which unfortunately rendered the Canadian lumber/forest workers too expensive on world markets.
I was a contractor for Macmillan Blodell Canadian White Pine division for 20 yrs, at a time when I was making REALLY good money as a tradesman, the workers there were making double what I was making, with no trade, and 1/2 of them could not even spell, or prevent their knuckles from dragging the ground, or drooling on their t-shirts. They became too expensive!!! Get it???
Look, we got to sell stuff, that's what we have, and lots of it. We need it to pay for stuff. Join reality. We all can't be hippie tree huggers who collect a welfare cheque on Wednesday, and camp out beating drums about big bad government, big bad business, big bad BIG in general. Well, maybe we can all just do nothing, get free everything, and let the next 3 generations pay for it. I've got no kids, I could care less about any debt when I'm gone.

Much of the south island is privately owned. Its not "so called" its has been in private hands since confederation. Comparing it to crown land in any way is dishonest.
Lets worry about crown land for sure, but do not use the south island as an example of what a normal crown land timber license can do.

There is no getting out of this a-live !!!

I'm here for a good time, and not a long time like the song says.

I can't change stupid, so I'll go biking when the sun comes out.

From Jeathrow Bowdean in Western Canada

Do a little research on who owns Island Timberlands and Timberwest, could it be the provincial government?

Yes, those lands were given away long ago in a roundabout way as payment to build the Railroad...

Get a grip Steve, if I was against resource extraction I wouldn't have a job... What I would like to see is some value added thought put into the way it is done... As I stated before, even with unprecedented resource extraction revenues coming in, the governments continue to run a deficit... So maybe instead of opening up more resource extraction fronts the powers that be should change the way they piss through the huge revenue already generated...

I do believe you when you say you could care less about the future generations with the way you present your me, myself and I views, but everyone is entitled to an opinion...

As for myself, I do have kids and I hope something is left for them and their kids...

I stand by my response except the part where I state I don't care about debt. I really do, and realize that unless we offer the world,,,,something,,,,we shall enter into a situation like southern Europe, Japan, and VERY soon, USA. Debt is the destruction of everything.
We simply must sell stuff. Adding value to any resource we have is an outstanding idea, and must be done at every opportunity. However, it must be done with a view to being attractively priced on the world market. I'm sorry, $300+/day does no compete well against $2-20/day. Governments of varying stripes have tried for decades to 'prop up' uncompetitive businesses here with mind to keep jobs alive, all failed because the money spent always was more than the whole economic feedback. As it is now, that we are selling raw logs to anyone who wants and collecting royalties, there is no other economically feesable option. Forcing companies to set up shop to cut logs here in order to gain access to our lumber will simply mean nobody will set up shop to cut wood. Really simple lads.
And so, we either sell our stuff, or we become the worlds largest park, and become an economic backwater like PEI, happy to be a net consumer to our country rather than a net contributor.

I'm not sure what personal wealth of this thread's attendee's has anything to do about anything. I'm not sure that the moderators of this forum would consider it correct that personal disclosures of anyone's private dealings in a negative manner to be in the best interests of anyone. That I am considered a wealthy person by anyone is very laughable. Consider me exceedingly frugal. However, if I was considered rich [another chuckle] I do not remember any bylaw restricting well off people being any less loud than those that block streets, yell obsenities at meeting attendees, and otherwise cause social disruption. We all have a right to do what we do.
Not once, not once, have I called for uncontrolled resource extraction. But we must have extraction to pay for your pension, and health care, as well as mine, and everyone elses. Anyone who calls for it to end, is in my opinion, pretty dis-ingenuous. We all jump on our gasoline powered, [Alberta tar sands sourced] bikes, strictly as a means of pleasure, not to save the world. We either burn wood, oil, or gas as a means to heat our homes. If a certain view is given, it should be followed up with examples of backing up ones' views. I consider it a common fact that most Canadians are really quick to talk the talk, but rarely back it up.

Regarding the original poster's comments, I consider the Canadian Centre for Policy alternatives, and the right wing equivalent Fraser Institute to both be nothing more than political shills, who's comments BOTH must be taken with severe reservation keeping with the fact that they are both politically biased, which as we all know, political biased opinion and views to be poison of the mind to weak thinking citizens.

Good to get a dialogue going, and hear member's differing perspectives/experiences:

Please read the article (http://blogs.theprovince.com/2013/0...-liberals-are-planning-a-b-c-forest-giveaway/) and speak out/up !
There's an election coming folks, tell Steve Thompson you dont want your forests given away !
steve.thomson.mla@leg.bc.ca
- Office phone # 250 387-6240, constituency phone # 250 712-3620

"....the bill would give the provincial cabinet powers to grant forest companies de facto private control over public forestlands without first having to notify or consult with the public.
Instead of companies enjoying rights to log set volumes of trees on public forestlands, companies would gain dramatically expanded powers to log trees on defined areas that in effect become their own semi-private fiefdoms."

"f the new legislation passes, the provincial cabinet could grant forest companies the rights to roll over numerous volume-based forest licences into area-based Tree Farm Licences. TFLs bestow by far the most secure rights of access to publicly owned trees of any arrangement with the provincial government. The new legislation could massively expand their use, beyond the limited number now issued."

My Dad has been involved with politics for 40 years to no value. My brother has been involved for 30 years with no value.

We are to small to stop the boat we are in, and there is no getting out of this "A LIVE."
I am not a smart man, nor can I change the world with a small vote being that the "Goverment" will take the direction it wants.

We see this in closers and restriction to all of our freedoms everyday. Don't go here, and don't do that is all I see across Canada in all directions. Our time is better spent doing what we can do as the stuff around us closes the doors and gates to keep us out. I've been all across North America and we can try to do something, but it will end up with no value being that we can't go it alone now that the world runs on spent funds from long ago.

I would like to see change just like you guys, but it's not going to happen because Canadian's except things the way they are. My Dad's generation had the chance to do this, but it never happened, so we are better living with the little bit we have and enjoy it well it lasts. The day will come that the ball will fall and it will all be over. Live today I say, and be happy if towmorow comes.

From Jeathrow Bowdean PS: If I could change the world, what kind of world would it be !!!