By Roy L Hales<\/p>\n
The leaders of BC\u2019s two largest political parties were in\u00a0Campbell River<\/a> over the weekend.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Standing on a flat-deck truck in the Discovery plaza, Saturday,\u00a0BC Liberal<\/a>\u00a0leader\u00a0Andrew Wilkinson<\/a>\u00a0criticized the NDP\u2019s failure to address the forestry crisis.<\/p>\n \u201cLast year, and earlier this year, we had an eight month strike at Western. Most of you felt that hard. If you were in Port McNeill, you watched coffee shops shut down permanently; you watched people\u2019s trucks get towed away; you watched people lose their homes,\u201d said Wilkinson.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd what did the NDP do for that eight months? They did nothing \u2013 because they couldn\u2019t be bothered to pay attention to these communities,\" he said. \"They couldn\u2019t be bothered to come out to the meetings.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd how many of you were at that meeting with [former MLA]\u00a0Claire Trevana<\/a>\u00a0that made it onto Youtube? We were talking about that on the way down here. It was an embarrassment. When the elected MLA for North Island, where the beating heart if this economy is coastal forestry, can say nothing more than \u2018Yes I hear you, I will go and ask my boss in Victoria.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd did she do anything in Victoria? \u2014 Nothing happened.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo you folks, rightfully, got a little fed up. You took your trucks down to Victoria, on February 18th of this year, and said \u2018enough is enough.\u2019 You circled the legislature. You showed them that you are proud of what you do. You showed them the investment you make in these massive machines, to do the work you do.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat happened?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cClaire Trevana wouldn\u2019t come out to see you. The Minister of Forests wouldn\u2019t come out to see you. They were having a cabinet meeting in that building to the west of where you were parked. And they sat there and looked out the window because they were too embarrassed to come out and saw hello.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s just plain wrong. Does anybody here with a horn in their truck agree that\u2019s just plain wrong?\u201d prompted Wilkinson.<\/p>\n The NDP responded with a press release<\/a>, in which they pointed out that the number of jobs in the forestry sector dropped 40% when the Liberals were in power, and 45 per cent less logs were processed.<\/p>\n In their\u00a02020 election platform<\/a>, the BC NDP have promised to work with First Nations governments, labour, industry, and environmental groups to \u201cimplement recommendations of the Old Growth Strategic Review\u201d to protect old-growth forests.<\/p>\n The\u00a0Ancient Forest Alliance<\/a>\u00a0pointed out that\u00a0Premier Horgan<\/a>\u00a0did not promise to implement\u00a0all<\/em>\u00a0of the panel\u2019s recommendations and he may choose to \u201cimplement only those recommendations that have the least impact on the logging industry\u2019s short-term economic interests.\u201d<\/p>\n One of the unknowns in this riding, is what effect will having a relatively high profile candidate like\u00a0Alexandra Morton<\/a>\u00a0do for the Green party?<\/p>\n So perhaps it is not surprising that when John Horgan spoke at the Campbell River Museum Sunday morning, he had a lot to say about wild salmon and\u00a0fish farms<\/a>.<\/p>\n Horgan said BC is currently partnered with the federal government on the $143 million\u00a0BC Salmon Restoration and Innovation Fund<\/a>, which he promises a re-elected BC NDP government would work to double.<\/p>\n As for\u00a0salmon farms<\/a>, Horgan said. \u201cThe vast majority of responsibility is with Ottawa. British Columbia issues the licenses for tenures, which is basically the land under the sea that the fish farms are attached to. So our responsibility in this area is limited, but we can in fact pull tenures. so [in 2017] we sat down with industry, indigenous leaders in the Broughton Archipelago, as well as communities<\/a>, and we\u2019ve now closed, I think, a dozen farms in the migratory route of the salmon through the Broughton,\u201d said Horgan.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve made a commitment that if the industry does not have buy-in from indigenous populations as well as communities by 2022, we\u2019ll start to phase out those farms as well,\" he added.<\/p>\nAndrew Wilkinson criticizes NDP forestry<\/h2>\n
NDP Forestry<\/h2>\n
Salmon Farms<\/h2>\n