B.C.’s Premier says he respects that loggers are making their voices heard with a convoy coming to the Union of B.C. Municipalities convention in Vancouver tomorrow.

John Horgan says no one in the forest sector is getting left behind, and he touted the $69-million-dollar forest relief fund which he says includes $15 million for contractors.

“Having contractors that have experience in the woods, that have the equipment necessary, to do that additional work that sometimes the pace of the market doesn’t allow us to do, because contractors are busy getting fibre to mills. Now we’ll be able to deploy those resources to make sure our forests are safe and healthy for the future.”

Logging trucks from across the Interior will meet in Merritt tomorrow, before being escorted by police down the Coquihalla and through the Lower Mainland to the UBCM convention.

Organizers say the initiative is meant to bring attention to the forestry crisis to government.

“That’s part and parcel of a democratic society, we need to hear from everyone. The fact that contractors are taking the time and taking their equipment to downtown Vancouver I think is a very good thing. It awakens the Lower Mainland to the challenges in B.C.’s Interior,” Horgan says.