Mr. Speaker, the practice of exporting raw logs from my riding of Vancouver Island North and beyond is costing jobs for our forest dependent communities. The practice is completely unsustainable and is causing deep concern for loggers, mill workers, environmentalists, first nations and local businesses.
The future of our economy is on the line. That is why I introduced Motion No. 301, calling upon the government to drastically curtail the export of raw logs and to promote domestic processing and value added manufacturing of forest products.
The Minister of Natural Resources says that I have his commitment, that he is aggressively pursuing this to keep jobs here. However, his government signed away our capacity to process lumber and sold out forestry workers when it signed the softwood lumber agreement. There is nothing in the 2007 budget to help affected communities. Over 60% of raw logs exported from B.C. come from federally regulated lands.
The bleeding of jobs can and must be stopped. The government must promote value added manufacturing in B.C. Save our logs, save our jobs and save our communities.