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From localnewscanada.com
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A Prince George forester who participated in Victoria's Jobs and Timber Accord
says he's "appalled" the B.C. government has scrubbed the program.
"I am bitterly disappointed that the promise of partnerships between government,
the primary forest sector and the value-added industry has come to nothing,"
says John Brink in a news release. "Fewer jobs and less value from each tree
cut are the direct results from this misguided experiment," adds the president
of value-added manufacturer Brink Forest Products.
The office of Garry Wouters, Jobs and Timber Accord advocate, will close Nov.
1, Forests Minister Jim Doyle announced Friday.
"Garry Wouters has played a key role in stimulating the forest policy debate
in B.C., especially in developing the recommendations that form the basis of the
Forest Policy Review," says Doyle. "His office will complete its few
outstanding assignments and then close."
Doyle says the Accord accomplished a number of goals:
- 2.1 million cubic metres of undersold timber, accumulated in the Small Business
Forest Enterprise Program, will be put up for sale by the end of 2000.
- Wood within the program has been reapportioned to the value-added manufacturing
program.
- The standing timber inventory has been increased to 97 per cent of the volume
companies have said they need.
- Seven community forest pilots have been announced.
- The mill closure review process was introduced.
- The wood fibre transfer program was established and regional value-added
facilitators hired.
Brink sees the program, announced to great fanfare by then-premier Glen Clark,
somewhat differently.
"The value-added sector had high expectations for the accord," says
Brink, who ran unsuccessfully recently for the BC Liberal nomination in Prince
George-Mount Robson. "It clearly set out two key areas for access to fibre
for secondary manufacturers."
Brink, whose company markets products it remakes from waste wood, says the
program was to increase the log supply available through reallocation of timber
within the Small Business Forest Enterprises Program. For secondary manufacturers
requiring access to lumber, it sought to transfer an additional 700 million
board feet of sawed lumber from primary mills.
"On both counts the Jobs for Timber Accord has failed and this failure
means disaster for the value-added wood manufacturing sector," Brink accuses.
"What has been created is a program, which punishes success and rewards
failure; a system that stimulates the trading of logs for profit and makes the
building of broader, viable secondary operations impossible."
Brink disputes Doyle's claim that the government has delivered 97 percent of
its obligation under the Accord.
"In fact, what the government has delivered is a case of political meddling
and toying with people’s jobs and livelihoods," Brink accuses. "The
situation is most telling in the Prince George area, where two or three companies
dominate the Small Business program. Competitive proposals are virtually non-existent
and performance contracts are seldom if ever enforced. The situation is similar
in other forest dependent communities.
"The Jobs for Timber Accord failed the value-added community dismally,"
summarizes Brink. "Let us all understand that government and bureaucrats
do not create jobs -– successful businesses create jobs."
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