NDP campaign run by USW, $600,000 in cash from USA

[Urbane]

If you follow the link the article goes on to explain each point in detail, and is an interesting read.

I'll set aside the fact that it's Martyn Brown, who was fired by Christy Clark, who authored this piece and just comment on the issue itself.

As you know, I agree with you about getting the corporate and union donations banned. Stephen Harper did it federally and we should do the same thing provincially. However, you've said that you're left of centre and you've also said that you're not sure about voting for the NDP. Is the reason for your hesitancy the fact that the Liberals have more money? No. It's issues like the Kinder Morgan expansion and Site C. So if the NDP would come up with more appealing policies they'd have a much better chance of getting elected. The money issue is a nice excuse but that's all it is. An excuse.

While the issue of campaign contributions is an important one it pales in comparison to other issues like the economy, resource development, and projects like Site C and Kinder Morgan. Those who have the issue of banning campaign contributions at the top of their list should vote NDP but those who have things like the economy at or near the top of their list should most definitely stay clear of the NDP. That's my take.

[Buckeye19]

3. The B.C. Liberals have an unfair funding advantage.

There is nothing unfair about one party being able to raise more money than another party. If the NDP was raising more money than the Liberals, you wouldn't hear a peep out of them.

[Jx3]

I kind of like it though, comparing Trump to Horgan.. Let's make BC great again..!!! Has a nice ring..

Great again? Like the 1990's? No thanks!

I love this response and I keep hearing it over and over and over, but I guess when that's all you've got then..!!..

Yes everything is "exactly" like it was 27 years ago. The economy is the same, house prices are the same, the whole slate of NDP candidates are the same.. Wakey wakey, it's 2017.. Or should we talk about the years between 1929 and 1939, I hear they were pretty tough too, perhaps the current NDP were responsible for that too..

Oh, sorry, so just to clarify, when you said "Let's make BC great again", when exactly was it previously great that you are referring to?

I just assumed you meant before the BC Liberals came to power 16 years ago. Silly me.

[krocky]

when contrasting the fundraising successes

Awwww look, still calling it fundraising..

[krocky]

I love this response and I keep hearing it over and over and over, but I guess when that's all you've got then..!!..

Yes it's all we've got.

Well at least you're admitting it now, I'll give you that...!!

[maryjane48]

Last year nearly 6.3 million cubic metres of raw logs left the province. Had those unprocessed logs been milled in B.C. instead, an estimated 3,650 more men and women could have been working in the province’s neglected forest sector. Moving up the value chain and making even higher value forest products would have added even more jobs to the tally.



thats all anyone in bc needs to know about the bclibs and logging . logs shipped out the door everyday while the ndp is committed to bring value added wood jobs back . its a simple contrast


bclibs /greens = lost forestry

ndp= forestry job creation .

[Rwede]

Log Exports: The Story Behind The Story

Log Exports: The Story Behind the Story
By David Elstone, RPF, TLA Executive Director
Truck LoggerBC, Spring 2017

It’s election time! And as if on cue, that old populist punching bag issue, BC’s log exports, has been pulled out to rally the masses. They’re painting the picture that our forests are being drained for simple profit, powered by the old saying “an exported log is an exported job.” It is easy to pull on heart strings when a loaded logging truck full passes through a town with no sawmill supposedly giving no benefit to the community.

So then why am I celebrating that in 2016 log exports as a percentage of the total coastal harvest was 35 per cent? My reasons are simple.

Exporting logs sustains local jobs, keeping workers employed in the woods and in BC sawmills and pulp mills. This is contrary to common belief. However, when you look at the facts, it’s clear it’s the truth.

If we were not exporting those logs (6.3 million cubic metres in 2016), those trees would not have been harvested. They would have been left standing and the loggers and truckers who delivered them would be out of work.

What gets overlooked by the anti-log export faction, is the economic reality that BC coastal sawmills, pulp mills and value-add producers need log exports to ensure they get the type of logs their mills need to operate. These manufacturing facilities need a specific type of log or species of timber to operate. Log exports allows us to harvest the entire timber profile. So if log exports were curtailed, the full harvest would be affected not just the 35 per cent that’s exported. With no log exports, there would be far, far greater unemployment in our rural communities.

So how do we explain all the mill closures we have seen in the province over the last 30 years? Again, much of the anti-log export rhetoric leaves out the full story. No BC sawmill has ever been closed because of a shortage of logs due to log exports. We need to look at the size of the working forest.

The BC allowable annual cut (AAC) for coastal Crown land has fallen from a high of 24.5 million cubic metres in 1985 to 16.5 million cubic metres today, a reduction of 8.0 million cubic metres or 33 percent. This is primarily as a result of increased environmental protection that reduced the size of the coastal working forest. Given the log capacity of the current mills operating on the coast, 8 million cubic metres equates to 16 sawmills closed as a result of environmental protection of coastal forests. Simply put, it is wrong to say that mills have closed as a result of log exports. These sawmills and pulpmills have closed, in part, as a result of significant AAC reductions caused by environmental pressure.


SNIPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP


While BC’s log export policies have been around for over 100 years, markets have changed dramatically. In 2005, log exports to the US were very strong. Today, the US demand has shrunk dramatically and is now fourth on the list of export destinations. As with so much of our BC forest products, China has become the top market for BC log exports. Again, contrary to common belief, very little returns to North America in finished product. If it weren’t for China, there would be significant unemployment in our forest industry across BC.

If the next government in BC wants to create more jobs in the forest industry, they should focus on policy that allows for the harvest of the four million cubic metres of allowable cut that goes unharvested every year. In doing so, they would create upwards of 8,000 jobs across the province. After all, there are two jobs in the forest supply chain (i.e., logging) for every direct manufacturing job.

We celebrate that 35 per cent of the coastal harvest was exported because we wouldn’t likely be here if it wasn’t. Perhaps environmentalists would be happy if that percentage was zero, but I am guessing loggers, mill workers and the rural communities where these people live and work would beg to differ.

http://tla.ca/LogExportStory

[The Green Barbarian]

Last year nearly 6.3 million cubic metres of raw logs left the province. Had those unprocessed logs been milled in B.C. instead, an estimated 3,650 more men and women could have been working in the province’s neglected forest sector. Moving up the value chain and making even higher value forest products would have added even more jobs to the tally..

This is just total crap. Shame on the NDP for spreading such horrible lies. It's time for that party to go.

[The Green Barbarian]

Well at least you're admitting it now, I'll give you that...!!

Thanks. As I said, it's basically a nuclear bomb. That's what we have. And if the NDP wins, it will detonate in our economy, and destroy everything. The NDP is a disease.

[krocky]

Well at least you're admitting it now, I'll give you that...!!

Thanks. As I said, it's basically a nuclear bomb. That's what we have. And if the NDP wins, it will detonate in our economy, and destroy everything. The NDP is a disease.

Sometimes it takes a new disease to wipe out a flesh eating bacteria....

[Gone_Fishin]

3. The B.C. Liberals have an unfair funding advantage.

There is nothing unfair about one party being able to raise more money than another party. If the NDP was raising more money than the Liberals, you wouldn't hear a peep out of them.

Good point, Buck. If the NDP could appeal to successful people who have more money, they'd be able to raise more. Unfortunately for Horgan and the Dippers, they appeal to uneducated, unsuccessful morons who have little to give, and thus raise less money. It's in the voters' best interests to pay strong attention to this salient fact, and realize that successful people are backing a successful platform. Vote for success.

[Leifer]

I wonder what favors will be called in from this Canadian hating, Trump loving, union kingpin for the $600,000 he forked over for the cause.
What do you think Horgan has signed us up for?

[maryjane48]

I wonder what favors will be called in from this Canadian hating, Trump loving, union kingpin for the $600,000 he forked over for the cause.
What do you think Horgan has signed us up for?

the president of uaw is canadian . you should actualy research something before beaking off. he is infact the second canadian to hold the position . your implying that the bank of canada govenour who took a job in uk now hates canada ? lol

[The Green Barbarian]

I wonder what favors will be called in from this Canadian hating, Trump loving, union kingpin for the $600,000 he forked over for the cause.
What do you think Horgan has signed us up for?

He's signed us up for what the NDP always signs up governments for, total and complete control of all policy and decision-making by un-elected union stooges.

[Hurtlander]

I wonder what favors will be called in from this Canadian hating, Trump loving, union kingpin for the $600,000 he forked over for the cause.
What do you think Horgan has signed us up for?

About the only possible thing the union kingpin could want in return is jobs for his members so the union dues keep rolling in every month, it wouldn't be in any unions best interest to lobby any government of any nation to eliminate union jobs anywhere..
The real joke is on all the low information people that speak of the "Canadian hating" union kingpin....Leo Gerard the international president of the Steelworkers union, is Canadian.