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B.C. Forestry

Opposition Liberals call for forest minister’s ouster in Thursday question period

Oct 10, 2019 | 8:04 AM

VICTORIA — There was spirited sparring in question period at the B.C. Legislature Thursday (Oct. 10) as the opposition B.C. Liberals called for an NDP minister to be fired.

Liberal Forests Critic John Rustad demanded the ouster of Forests Minister Doug Donaldson over the government’s response to the industry crisis in the province’s Interior.

After calling for Donaldson to be turfed, Rustad told CFJC Today the government’s response to more than 100 curtailment announcements has been inadequate.

“There are so many things that this government needs to be doing, and the first is to show just an ounce of compassion for the people that are being impacted, and be able to provide some help,” said Rustad.

“Just last week on Friday in Williams Lake, a group of foresters got together as a fundraiser to raise $6,000 to be able to help forest families just to be able to buy food, just to be able to survive through this. Our government is completely ignoring it.”

The NDP government announced a $69 million aid program in September. However, the program is largely aimed at helping workers exit the industry rather than providing direct relief.

“When you look at the money being carried over the next two years, only a very small fraction of it will actually even go to communities. The rest is for things like retraining, for workers to retire,” said Rustad. “Those are important pieces, but we’ve got a lot of workers that are seriously being impacted. We need help to go into communities right now to be able to help these people.”

“You should have packages going to communities. We should have works already in place with the federal government to be able to help with some of the EI programs or other types of assistance programs,” he continued. “There’s so much that could have been done.”

In question period, Donaldson defended the government’s response.

“The… opposition calls a $69 million support program, ‘virtually nothing,'” said Donaldson. “I would say he should get in touch with the mayor of Mackenzie, he should get in touch with the mayor of Fort St. James, who are appreciative of this forest support program.”

Rustad touted a five-point plan put forward by the Liberal opposition in June as a start, but Donaldson dismissed it in question period.

“That’s great. The opposition puts forward a five-point plan in June. Where was your plan from two years ago, [or] from 2015, when you knew that the crisis was going to hit the Interior forest sector with the end of the beetle wood,” said Donaldson. “You did nothing to prepare communities.”

Despite Donaldson’s protestations, Rustad and his Liberal colleagues continue to call for Premier John Horgan to replace him.

“My hope is that we would actually have somebody in this government who would be able to advocate for the forest sector,” said Rustad. “[We need someone] who would be able to stand up, to go to Treasury Board, bring in a package of new money — unlike the existing package which is just taking money from Peter to pay Paul — and really get in there and do some things that are going to help workers.”

“If he can’t do the job, he needs to be replaced and we need to have somebody in there who can do the job to be able to support our forest sector.”

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