The B.C. Council fo Forests Industry is underway, with more than 600 participants including some key movers and shakers in both the political and economic world. The theme is Where Do We Stand? Strategies for Competitiveness and Sustainability. There’s quite a few write-ups on it, including in industry publication Wood Business:
City of Prince George Mayor Simon Yu also welcomed the crowd to Prince Geroge. Yu discussed the importance of the forestry sector to the region, and the need to create fibre certainty so companies operating in the region can invest further into keeping sawmills and other forest products plants running, and possibly, expand and open new mills.
“We need to be innovative and rethink wildfire management, harvesting, and most importantly, thinning,” he said.
Yu added that all the stakeholders in the room – industry, labour, government, First Nations – need to establish trust with each other, and focus on working with each other to find solutions to everyone’s challenges so the sector can grow a healthier value-added industry.
MLA of Prince George-Mackenzie Kiel Giddens also welcomed the crowd to the convention. Giddens stated that he wanted to see a forest sector that focused on sustainability and the environment but also had a strong focus on economic and socioeconomic sustainability.
“We need your help. We need your ideas, and I look forward to discussing these ideas with all of you over the next couple of days. Now, more than ever, we need resource champions who are willing to take on the partnerships and innovation needed for our prosperity and good family-supporting jobs right here in British Columbia,” he said.
In the Citizen, former premier/current BC Hydro chair Glen Clark offered his thoughts on the situation:
All we can do as a province is ask: what can we do? We can’t do anything about wildfires, we can’t do anything about the mountain pine beetle, we can’t do anything about the Americans.
Similar thoughts come in My Prince George Now, reporting on s conversation that included Clark and UNBC undergrad degree holder (also former federal cabinet minister and UNBC chancellor) James Moore:
“Donald Trump has given us a big hand here in the sense that he is going to impoverish Americans. He crashed the stock market, jack up inflation and is going to make everything more expensive and he has made a lot of the world hate the United States, which I don’t think Americans aren’t going to like a lot of those things and they will want this to stop.”
Premier David Eby is giving a keynote today but he earmarked some of his talking points in a press conference held in Victoria yesterday, saying he planned to bring up softwood lumber when he meets with Prime Minister Mark Carney in the coming days:
He said he wants to put the softwood lumber dispute on the national agenda, noting that Trump has launched a national security investigation into Canada's timber practices, with U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick repeating that the sector is a key area of "concern" and raising anxiety about the industry's future.
"It's important for the prime minister to understand the unique impacts of the president's actions on British Columbia," Eby said. "The risk always with prime ministers and with federal parties is they get trapped in Ontario ... they are in Ottawa. They're beside Quebec, literally just over a bridge, and they forget about the West.
"So, my message to the prime minister will be that you have to be on top of issues in Western Canada and in British Columbia. Your response, whether they support workers or industries or whatever it is, needs to include British Columbia."
If that’s enough industry talk for you, don’t worry: Minerals North, focused on mining, is coming up later this month.
I just noticed this ad for Highway 16 cell coverage from Rogers. Anyone know if this is a real spot on the road?
News roundup:
Cougars lose agonizing gut-wrencher in double overtime and are now facing elimination tonight. Go Cougars!
PG RCMP seeking witnesses in an attempted purse and phone theft.
Delegation to ask council for support in addressing intimate partner violence.
First LNG carrier arrives in Kitimat, B.C., as $40B liquefied natural gas plant prepares to start.
Judge orders evidence be produced in legal battle over Vanderhoof hay business.
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