Mr. Speaker, last week in Campbell River we had a forum to discuss the impacts of raw log exports on jobs, families and communities. That very week also saw our last remaining sawmill on Vancouver Island North shut down for the second time in two months due to a shortage of logs.
It is ironic that there are no logs when in the first three months of this year 800,000 cubic metres of logs were exported from B.C., the equivalent of 580 full time mill worker jobs. The irony is not lost on the laid off mill workers in Campbell River. They know what thousands of other unemployed mill workers know, that the export of raw logs means the export of their jobs.
The people of Vancouver Island North will not sit idly by and watch their communities crumble due to the crisis in the forest industry. They are calling on the federal and provincial governments to take action, to invest in the forest industry, to help reinvigorate the lumber processing sector, and to stimulate value added manufacturing.
Speakers told us at the meeting how value added products could be made with our logs without penalty under the softwood lumber agreement. Why is it not happening? Why will the federal government not wake up and help forest dependent communities to flourish rather than to falter?