| Courier-Islander |
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Here's the insanity of it all in a nutshell. The TimberWest sawmill in Campbell River is shut down because the company says it isn't viable. This shutdown brings to 21 the number of sawmills closed in B.C. Yet the companies involved maintain their rights to B.C.'s forests.
Hundreds, thousands, of jobs are lost. And then the wicked cycle begins. The local pulp mill, without the sawdust it would normally get from the local sawmill and other B.C. locations, is now buying the sawdust from Washington state sawmill operations who are -- guess what -- processing raw logs shipped to them from British Columbia.
Meanwhile, a feasibility study has confirmed that the local sawmill could be a viable operation. We suggest the only reason TimberWest said it is not viable is because it simply don't want it to be. We also suggest that if the provincial government had the courage to tell them, "No sawmill? Then no trees," the viability of the local operation would change immediately in the company's eyes.
But that is not happening. It would appear that the provincial government is selling us out.
Of course, we might be wrong. Perhaps the sawmill isn't viable. But how come the sawmills in Washington are viable? Better management? The provincial government must step in now and protect our forests and our jobs. They are being party to breaking a key part of a fragile economic circle that will cause it all to crumble. At the very least the provincial government should not be rewarding companies by allowing them unfettered access to our forests and by awarding them vast tracts of land for real estate development.
