Dear editor,
So Premier Horgan wants the Green Party to give him a few million dollars to conserve old-growth? (CBC )
Horgan’s had almost five years in power to require forest companies - who recently made record profits stripping B.C. ancient forests even as they steadily laid-off workers - to upgrade mills to cut second and third growth and produce more value-added products for more jobs. Instead, six of these companies (in an industry subsidized by taxpayers at $365 million annually) used those profits to buy up southern US mills (presumably all non-union).
Since taking power in 2017 the NDP has given over $3 billion in taxpayer subsidies to oil and gas companies despite UN warnings that fossil fuel production must stop. The NDP continued with Site C (planned to provide power for LNG fracking) instead of cancelling: now it’s up to $16 billion ($3 million a day) for a dam that, should it ever meet safety standards to operate, will never compete with the continually falling costs of renewable energy. $3 billion for fossil fuel production and $16 billion for a dam that will flood 57,000 acres of farmland and forest just as cooler northern farmland is needed more than ever - $19 billion on ecologically disastrous projects!
So instead of allocating a billion dollars for conservation and to create a sustainable industry that will protect the livelihood of forest workers and First Nations, Mr. Horgan instead breaks his promise to British Columbians to safeguard the remnants of our iconic ancient forests. He ignores the Old Growth Review Panel’s urgent recommendation for an immediate deferral of old-growth logging while he stalls with reports and committees and speeches – and keeps logging.
Now his proposed Freedom of Information legislation will remove the premier’s office from the reach of public information requests: so what else does the NDP have to hide, besides a slew of broken old-growth protection promises and a mire of climate-denying and economically reckless policy decisions?
Gillian Anderson,
Merville