BURNABY, BC - The United Steelworkers welcomed the BC New Democrats' forest platform, which promises to deal with the crisis that has knocked out dozens of wood-processing plants and killed some 25,000 jobs province-wide.

"At last someone says they will actually stand up for forest-sector workers and resource-based communities," says Steelworkers Western Canadian Director Stephen Hunt. "We desperately need a government that listens to our concerns, takes us seriously and will actually tackle the problems that the current government has ignored."

Hunt noted that even before the slump in the US housing market, Gordon Campbell's Liberal government had failed to address serious problems in the industry. "In fact, many of Campbell's policies made things worse," he noted.

Among the Liberals' most damaging policies were the changes to the Forest Act that removed controls on annual harvest rates and local processing of timber, eliminated the mill-closure review process, allowed companies to exchange licenses without ministerial oversight and close mills at will. In addition, Liberal support for contracting-out and low-bid timber auctions, coupled with allowing companies to self-regulate timber harvesting, started a race to the bottom that undermined safety and environmental standards.

"We've suffered through a failed experiment in free-market forestry," says USW Wood Council Chair Bob Matters. "The New Democrats' hands-on approach can only benefit communities and help restore the industry to health and sanity."

Matters notes that the NDP's plan for a phased-in tax on log exports is consistent with the plan Steelworkers presented to the BC Forest Round Table last year. "We understand that economic realities say we can't end exports overnight, especially given how the Liberals have destroyed the manufacturing sector. But we welcome the commitment to start reducing the quantity of raw logs leaving the province."

Under the Campbell government exports soared from a tiny fraction of BC's total harvest to over 5 million cubic meters in 2005. Even with reduced harvest levels due to the slump in the housing sector, BC raw-log exports reached 2.6 million cubic meters in 2008. And companies were allowed to turn productive forests to real estate.

"We welcome the NDP's take-charge approach. The Liberals' policy of allowing industry to do whatever it likes and hope for the best didn't work. They trusted industry to invest and create jobs' but when they didn't they were left with no direction and no ideas. It's time for a change," said Matters.