Liberal leader Mark Carney was in Victoria on Monday, meeting with Prime Minister David Eby to talk about strategies to protect the BC soft wood industry.
Eby and Carney spent 20 minutes talking in the legislature during Carney’s visit to the province of week three of the federal campaign.
“We have a lot to talk about today,” Eby told Carney while receiving it near the front steps of the legislature. “We received some bad news about tariffs for our soft wooden industry.”
The bad news is that the United States plans more than double the duty it charges on the imports of soft wood in Canada. The new planned rate will be set at 34 percent, compared to 14 percent.
“This is another unjustified rate. You can expect us to fight against him,” said Carney, at a press conference in Sea Cider Farm & Ciderhouse in the Saanich Peninsula.
The forestry industry is preparing for higher tasks in the midst of the growing commercial war between Canada and the United States, it is the last blow to the mistreated sector, which has seen thousands of fired workers in recent years.
Carney said that the increase in tasks could damage more than 50,000 workers, and any government response must have workers in their center.
In a statement after the meeting with Carney, EBY said the two talked about the soft wood industry, reducing interprovincial commercial barriers through a national transport corridor for goods and services and accelerating important infrastructure projects and affordable homes.
Eby said that the “renovated Trump assault to our forestry sector needs the same response from the Canada team as manufacturing and automotive industry work in Ontario and Quebec. The prime minister confirmed his understanding of the seriousness of the problem of soft wood and his commitment to work with us to address it proactively.”
The forest minister, Ravi Parmar, was more direct in his criticisms of the Federal Government, saying that he has been “absent” in his support for the BC soft wood industry.
“What I understand was raised between the prime minister and the prime minister today is that, if this were the automotive sector, there would be more on the table,” he said to the journalists after the meeting.
“We need the federal government and the prime minister to take this seriously. We need to make sure that the same priority is given to the steel industry or the automotive industry.”
The problem dominates the question period
The question of the questions dominated the soft wood on Monday, with the official opposition accusing the NDP of not protecting jobs while offering nothing more than liberal conversation points.
“Will the Prime Minister tell the people of BC what his new master of liberal puppets told him to say about this file?” BC conservative leader John Rustad asked.
Eby replied that 10,000 forest jobs were lost under the former BC liberal government of which it was part of the opposition leader. Rustad played the figures and the CBC could not verify them independently.
Rustad said that 30 sawmills have closed under the surveillance of the NDP, and companies move to provinces in which it is less expensive to operate.
“We have not seen any OTTAWA action or this government for eight years,” he told reporters.
Rustad pushed the government to adopt the proposal of his party to collect a carbon tax on the American coal sent from the BC ports, which could be used as an influence on soft wood negotiations.
Those in the registration industry want to see more details about what will be done to protect jobs in an already battered industry.
Mike Egli, owner of Dalchako Transport, a log transport company in Vanderhoof, said the possibility of higher tasks adds another layer of uncertainty.
Egli is worried that he can lead to more factories, which would damage his business.
Jeff Bromley, president of the Wood Council of the workers of United Steel, which represents 14,000 workers in the forestry and manufacturing sector, said the union is preparing for dismissals.
“I hope to be wrong, but I can’t see how companies could run with that type of cost structure added to them.”
Bromley said that when the good payment of “family support jobs” disappears, they are almost impossible to return.
“We will still have a forestry industry in BC and throughout the country when this ends, but there will be a lot of pain in my opinion.”
