Where’s the Money?

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One cannot pick up any newspaper without seeing a reminder that advances in technology are rapidly changing the way people now live and work. Canadians are as active in developing new ideas as any national group but are not as good when it comes to reaping the benefits of their future commercial developments.

Whoever wins the current election might be well advised to make changing this a priority because it is from ideas that jobs in manufacturing, distribution, and sales spring. Furthermore, one idea often leads to another, and the economic development process starts anew.

For all the encouraging information coming out about ground-breaking new developments, there seems to be an equal amount emerging about technology that is on the verge of production being sold to a large, often offshore, industrial or investment concern. In too many cases it means that the technology itself is exported and the highly skilled manufacturing jobs it generates are developed for other people. In other cases, the income derived from it benefits the offshore buyer, and not Canada.

If this is a matter of real concern, Canada’s tax system could stand reforming to allow for large scale capital assembly so that money created from peoples’ good ideas stays in the country to be used for the development of new businesses.  If any of the local candidates could use some suggestions for where the money could be used, they might consider the opportunities available in the forest products sector and their potential for new materials used in the construction of new housing.

Protestors Unreasonable

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Loggers at Fairy Creek on Vancouver Island say, “We have had enough!” referring to the antics of recent protestors.  Carl Sweet of ‘The BC Forest Alliance’ has come out in defense of the loggers saying that activists were deliberately and strategically provoking forestry workers at their place of employment.

The video recently circulated on social platforms is what the activists wanted, and the media took the bait.  Carl Sweet stated; “I think the media is enabling the misinformation of what is happening in the BC forest industry.  These are hard-working people who go home to their family every day, and the environmentalists are taking it to the next level.”

The BC Forest industry is one of the most technically advanced and environmentally conscious tree-harvesting industries in the world.  But that is the opposite of what radical groups convey.

With silviculture mandated and strictly controlled, the forests are a sustainable resource.  Overall, it is a very well-managed system.  The AAC is strictly controlled by government, and cut blocks are not random.  They are specifically defined by accredited individuals, taking into consideration, among other things, terrain, hydrology, and habitat sensitivity, leaving designated wildlife corridors intact.

Logging roads are designed by qualified Professional Engineers and decommissioned when no longer in use.  This too is controlled and monitored.

There are riparian rules, cultural protection rules, work-safe rules, and union adherence to attune to, along with weather constraints and fire seasons to consider.

From stump to dump, all participants are trained licensed, insured, and united under a common purpose that allows many people to feed their families and contribute to the social net; in some cases, the very social net that environmental activists are eager to draw from.

Professional Registered Foresters
The AAC
COFI