Elizabeth James Finds Us Lost in the Woods

David:

Awake far too early, as usual, I turned to TV Channel 111 locally, mostly for the background music. But then this brilliant news item scrolled by --

"The Federal Government appears poised to introduce programs to provide relief to Canada's struggling forest industry, which has been hit by a double whammy - the rising value of the Canadian dollar and the depressed housing economy in the United States." Nary a peep about the criminally-ignored, decade-plus, devastation of the interior forests of this province, soon to sweep though the Central and South Okanagan tourist mecca.

Where is BC on the map? It's almost as though we don't exist out here.

I thought the Conservative power base was in Western Canada. And where's our own government - besides scribbling about green carbon taxes on the Maui beach, that is?

A good friend of mine - a consultant in the industry - remarked last summer, "Elizabeth, what you have to realize is that forestry in British Columbia is no longer about trees; it's about real estate."

That was confirmed a few weeks ago, of course, by the sell-off of lands in a coastal forestry licence to private interests in Sooke - all given the OK by BC's Minister of Forests.

And where are the people? Heads in the sand, making pots of dough - at ten bucks an hour - in the "booming (paper) economy" of the Best Place on Earth.

And where will they be when our resource-based economy goes bust? Movin' on, Brother; movin' on out.

Elizabeth