If we can’t successfully manage our forests and the industry that those forests developed – how could we ever think that we could successfully manage oil and gas resources – or any other natural resource for that matter? According to a Globe and Mail feature, as recently as September 2004, 308,664 Canadians earned a living from logging, papermaking and wood products manufacturing. A decade later, the industry employed just 190,651 people. That loss of 118,000 jobs is more than one-third of the industry’s work force and for the most part, high-paying jobs with good benefits and pensions. It’s the equivalent of eliminating every job in the auto assembly and auto parts sector in Canada. It also underlines how the devastation of the country’s manufacturing sector has affected communities coast to coast. In 2000, forestry outperformed the auto and oil and gas industries to rank as the single-largest contributor to Canada’s trade surplus, with a positive balance of $38-billion. By last year, the surplus tumbled by half to $19.1-billion. Forest products provided 3 per cent of Canada’s gross domestic product two decades ago. Last year it was 1 percent. The names of those corporate giants, once proud symbols of Canada’s elite status in forest products, vanished in a convulsion of bankruptcy protection filings. The biggest decline has been in pulp and paper, where the culprit is obvious – the Internet. As consumers shunned traditional printed newspapers, magazines and telephone directories in favour of websites and mobile apps - print advertising revenues plunged and publishers shrank their publications or stopped printing altogether. So let’s make a comparison, our entire country is now focused on constructing a future connected to Tarsands oil and liquid natural gas yet we are in complete denial regarding the eventual depletion of these resources as well as the technology shifts towards renewable energy. We have failed to adjust how our forests are linked to changing demands and trends and we have ignored the workers who have depended on those forests….we will do the same when it comes to our growing dependence on fossil fuels and our belief that they will anchor our economy forever. We continue to place flawed thinking at the helm.
Posted on: Sat, 06 Dec 2014 17:37:21 +0000