Mr. Speaker, today I will be delivering more than 800 postcards to the Prime Minister's Office from the residents of Alberni Valley on Vancouver Island.
Their message is clear. Logging practices in the Alberni Valley are completely unsustainable and are causing deep concern to loggers, mill workers, environmentalists, first nations and local business. The future of our economy is on the line.
We are asking the Prime Minister to preserve and strengthen the surplus test on export of raw logs from lands in B.C.
Approximately 1 million cubic meters of wood provide 790 full time processing jobs. With 2.5 million cubic meters of logs exported last year from private lands in B.C., the federal government allowed approximately 2,000 jobs to disappear. Many communities in my riding are also suffering as truckload after truckload of raw logs is exported.
That is why I am pleased to support the Save Our Valley Alliance as we work together to ban raw log exports and keep jobs in Canada.