We (bc) are about to be robbed blind over the next few years by an industry that has just been handed the keys to the entire province. The only returns to this province will be campaign contributions to a specific political party, which will be spent to bring US Republican campaigners up to help the party out. This at a time when fire and bugs are erasing huge healthy stands, sawmill closures are devestating small communities, yet the minister of the portfolio acts like some wind up doll that blathers on about how great the Americans are to deal with or what kind of SOBs they are and why don't we put a tariff on oil to show them. Massive profits for Weyerhaeuser Canada (a wholley owned subsiduary of Weyerhaeuser US is in my interests?

Just like forming so called health boards..loaded with seeded Liberals ..left to police themselves..Results have been a disaster so far and getting worse for health care .

If you buy into the rhetoric of the private sector, there is no public interest. It doesn't exist. Or, if you will, public interest is only the sum of all private interests. So, the Liberals see the job of the government as turning as much of the public sphere as possible over to private interests (without causing total revolution among the 'lumpenproletariat' who don't count anyway). And if the worse than decimated forests ministry can't provide protection for 'public' resources it only stands as proof that the public sector isn't up to the job and that the private sector should be granted more control. People who work for the public sector are the victims of a wonderful double bind. If you're doing the job, you're inefficient because you cost too much. So, the government will cut you back in the interests of 'efficiency.' Then, when you've been cut off at the knees so you can't do the job properly at all, you've provided all the evidence they need to get rid of you entirely. What a wonderful scam. As Doc Daneeka said of catch-22, "It's the best there is."

And this gets me wondering... if timber companies are underpaying stumpage fees and misleading the Ministry of Forests on timber appraisals (as is implied here), doesn't that lend legimitacy to U.S. complaints of subsidizing? Well, the WTO has ruled in favour of Canada, so perhaps not. But it can't look good to the Americans. I can see why forestry companies there would be outraged that a huge logging area like B.C. is so inadequately regulated/monitored.

Since the logging companies are likely to cut corners in order to improve the bottom line, why not take away the ability to increase profits? Even if only 1 out of every 147 truckloads is inspected, if there is any problem found with how the one truckload is accounted for, fine the company for 500 truckloads worth of lumber, and take away any timber licenses they have. If the result of improper behaviour is bankruptcy, maybe we'd see some better behaviour.

I agree Kano. Another major area open for abuse is where the logging companies trade off stumpage fees for road building to access the timber. I suspect they have done well in the past on that, and will be doing even better now.

Setting: It is bedtime in a sinister Victorian manner. The estate is surrounded by a wrought iron fench of great height and industrial pollution hangs heavy in the air. In the Dickension streets surrounding the guarded Poe-ish mansion are either beggars and the destitute or the well-to-do in all their symbolic regalia. The year is 2010. Spoiled, elitist brat: "Grandpapa, will you tell me again of the New Era?" Grandfather Gordo, recalling fondly: "Ah, the New Era - I remember it well!! It was a time of greed and corruption. It was a time of social inequity and despair!!!! Ah but men such as myself could do WELL (spoken in menacing gleeful tone) in the New Era!!!! maniacal laughter......." Raven Squawks, orange full moon disapears behind cloud. Fade to black. End scene.

Money means all to some. These new policies in our forests is the beginning of the end of them. Get lots of pictures for your grandkids, cause they wont believe you when you tell them that BC used to be full of trees, wildlife and salmon filled streams. This government is unbelievably shortsighted. Could they at least consider what their policies will make our province look like in 30 years??? Stupid...stupid...stupid

Our forest industry has been terribly mismanaged for a long time and changes needed to be made. Of course there is going to be difficulties while every stakeholder figures the exact definition of their duties, but in time this will be a much better system than the one that killed the BC forest industry. I'm sure you guys would like the government to have their hand in everything but that’s not going to happen. I can assure you that the environmental damage being done today is far, far less than what has transpired over the land 100 years in this province. But because it's not a morally superior NDP government in power they're wrong. These companies that all you hate actually supply good jobs to a lot of people, but I guess public sector work is the only noble profession. Although this may not be the best system and changes will be needed it is a step in the right direction. In these post all I see is just another reason to jump on the Liberal bashing bandwagon. You make it sound like the Liberals are the first government to allow logging in our province. Bt, that is some classic rhetoric. One thing you did forget to mention though was that every year all the so called elite meet at a secret location in the mountains to figure out a way to screw the little guy. I here a lot of anti-Liberal rhetoric and thats about it.

Jim, you give no indication at all that you know anything about the Forest industry in B.C. Your post is strictly 'name calling' with nothing to back it up. However, you are right about the Libs meeting with the corporate elite, although a lot more than once a year and likely not in the mountains.

hey jim where to begin? 1) the elite have met just as you described not more than 2 months ago. It was called the provincial liberal bi-annual convention and it took place in the proletariat mountain village of whistler.(this was just a week after they got their asses kicked in the surrey-panorama by-election.) The real policy discussions, privatization of everything currently public and creation of a mediaeval state consisting of slaves and overlords happened behind closed doors ofcourse. For public consumption, via disgraceful canwest(see point 3)) we got "no more junk food in bc schools!!!" and a kindler gentler machine gun hand liberal party. 2)two wrongs don't make a right. if the ndp allowed unsustainable resource extraction practices that should not give carte blanche to this bunch of crooks. one would hope that people learn from their predecessors mistakes. That we do not has probably doomed all of us. 3)atleast this forum gives people a chance to express their opinions. if you want rhetoric observe the disgraceful right wing pro-liberal punditry that permeates the corporate (canwest)media. no wonder the evil ba$%ards want the cbc disolved. If they ever get the cbc the tyee index wont be long after-beleive you me! when they came for the jews i looked the other way when they came for the gypsies i said nothing when they came for my neighbor i did not speak out when they came for me there was noone left to hear my scream

Exactly, trulib, probably in Harrison Hot Springs. I think you miss the point Jim, no one is saying any past government has been perfect only that the present government has given carte blanche to logging in this province and that monitoring is inadequate, to say the least. In Powell River, we had logging happening across the street from a high density residential area. One of the logging trucks rolled over the bank, pulling down live hydro wires with it, that landed on resident's roofs, garages and the street for a couple of blocks. Mostly young families reside there with little children. You can imagine the terrifying feeling of people as to what to do and where their kids were playing when this happened.

This is a national heritage area of town and has never been logged, except when the townsite was created. Just recently because of this same logging loosening the bank above these homes, one of the remaining trees fell on one of the homes nearly demolishing it. The only saving grace was that it was a rental home and between tenants at the time.

I work with the MOF people and the other provincial agencies, these field people are overworked and overstressed. Now the government is slowly starting to hire again realizing they cut to far, but the damage is done, much of the corporate knowledge went out the door with the people. I also work with many of companies that work in the bush and quite a number of them are quite good. But one of their fears is that “gypo” outfits will be able to under bid them by cutting corners and slowly drive all the companies down their level in order to survive. One Forester told me that for all the complaining they did about the code, the companies now spend far less on road upkeep than they used to, so good practices certainly pay off over the longterm. I am also pleased by the efforts that many companies take to ensure habitat diversity in their cutblocks, certainly a change from the way they did things 20 years ago. We now have a generation of people working in the bush who grew up in a culture where their effect on the forest matters to them, that is worth it’s weight in gold. We need to make sure that it is not lost.

Dear Jim, Why do you lock your door when you go on holiday? Why do you lock your car when you park downtown? People are noble and trustworthy, and would never ever rip anybody off.

Let's fire all the policemen while we're here, since we really don't need em. All we have to do is just ask everybody to look after themselves.

In a pigs eye. This is obviously some kind of scam, we just don't know exactly what kind yet. But I bet we'll find out. As soon as it's too late.

Bailey .. proof gords ads are working!

Seems pretty obvious that putting the foxes in charge of our henhouse is risky (with all due respect to all the nice, ethical foxes out there). Seems especially risky if we're also asking the foxes to do all our accounting for us--how many chickens have we got, how many to be billed on the foxes' monthly lunch tab, how many flew the coop, etc.

Weyerhauser has sold Northwest Bay log sort and booming ground to Texada Land Corp. Rumour has it that will be divided into 2 1/2 acre lots. Employees will start their day in Chemanius even if they're working on a truck or machine at Horne Lake. System designed by an accountant,not a mechanic. Probably there will be at least 1/3 fewer employees.

Some are telling Tyee that even if there are forestry concerns to complain about matters are still much better than they were X years ago. But there were eco campaigns in the 60s where the timber owners and their flacks burbled on about how much better things were than years before. Same in the 70s, the 80s, the 90s, and they can find people who will say it even now when it should be obvious we are sliding back to the 1920s in terms of forest protection.

What is truly astonishing is that "they" are finding people,lots of people, and lots of hopeful politicians who show indifference to the gutting of the forest service.The true position is that if you thought things were bad 40 years ago, you ain't seen nothing yet when the operators are no longer hemmed in by regulation.

And the eco freaks are finding themselves swept off the stage of public opinion by a population that seems wholly preoccupied with bread and circuses. If the people generally cannot be roused to even mild anxiety by the fast approaching howling madness of large scale turbulence of weather what will engage their.....interest?

The situation is puzzling. Perhaps eco freaks need to get out of the single item box and into the community, or maybe the community ought to put aside all goals except survival. Whichever it is, we seem to be a long way from forest protection, even to the standards of the 90s, the 80s, the 70s, and so. Maybe once more, the West Coast Trail, before that is also gone.

I currently review projects put forward by forestry companies and many of the people I deal with certainly have a much greater care for the environment than the forest workers I knew 20 years ago. There are a number of companies that really do try to their best, but under the new system, I fear they will be forced to shed good environmental practices in order to compete with “gypo” companies who will be able to under bid the better companies.
We have created an generation of forestry workers who grew up caring about the environment and it will be a huge loss if this attitude is lost. The radical eco-activists miss the boat and fail to realize that to properly protect the environment, you need to have the frontline workers on side. Those workers and their managers need the tools and protection to do their job and minimize impacts on the environment.