Premier John Horgan says aid for truck loggers hurt by a five-month forestry strike on Vancouver Island is on its way, just a day after contractors rallied for action on the steps of the legislature.
Horgan said in an interview that he’s heard “loud and clear” the stories of hardship and despair from mid- and North Island communities where contractors, truck loggers and others are caught in the middle of a lengthy strike between the United Steelworkers and Western Forest Products.
“There are truck loggers who are being affected by this, not for any reason of their own making,” Horgan said Thursday. “So we’re looking at ways we can ensure that they keep their vehicles, for example. Those are programs that are being developed right now. And we’ll have more to say about that probably early in the new year, maybe as early as next week.”
More than 200 forestry contractors rallied at the legislature on Wednesday, calling for government action. And Interior truck loggers organized a convoy through downtown Vancouver in September to protest government forestry policies and inaction.
United Steelworkers Local 1-1937 and Western Forest Products were set to return to the negotiating table Thursday with mediator Vince Ready, but talks have been rescheduled to Saturday as Ready was unavailable.
Horgan acknowledged he reached out to both parties recently to urge them to get back to the table. Issues include shift schedules and a drug-and-alcohol policy.
Contractors can’t intervene in bargaining, but are nonetheless out of work during the dispute because Western Forest Products controls the bulk of Crown timber tenures on the North Island. The contractors have said they are struggling economically to retain their equipment and pay their bills as the longest strike in coastal forest history drags on.
Forestry workers have been calling on the Horgan government to create a coastal forestry aid package similar to a $69-million fund announced earlier this year for the Interior forestry sector, which helps retrain employees who have lost their jobs and bridges their retirements.
The pending announcement for the coast does not appear to match the Interior package.
“It’s directly specifically at the contractors,” said Horgan.
“It’s hard to get job stabilization funds in play when it’s a dispute that’s between two parties. That’s not the case with the curtailments in the Interior. Those are decisions being made to rationalize the industry.”
Horgan said North Island NDP MLA and Transportation Minister Claire Trevena deserves credit for holding difficult town hall meetings with frustrated forestry workers and contractors in her constituency, but that his government has directly heard their concerns.
“We hear it loud and clear,” said Horgan. “It’s a very difficult time and then when it comes at Christmas it’s compounded when it comes to the people and the families that are affected, and I feel terrible.”
Critics of the NDP’s forestry policies have said the government’s additional fees on raw log exports, penalties on wood waste, refusal to intervene on stumpage fees and vetoes on Crown tenure swaps have exacerbated the crisis facing the sector due to a shortage of timber supply, low prices in the U.S. and the softwood lumber trade dispute.
Horgan said his policies are not to blame for the forestry downturn.
