Last year the Province pledged $69 million in forestry relief and about one-third of that has still to be committed.
The Ministry of Forests tells NL News that $16.8 million out of the $40 million set aside for early retirement payouts for forestry workers has been allocated.
Premier John Horgan was on the NL Morning News and when asked if the unspent money would be moved somewhere else, he was clear it wouldn’t be.
“Well it’s going to be staying in forestry,” he said. “We have significant challenges in the forestry sector. We’re working with the council of forest industries to move towards more value and less volume out of our forests.”
Horgan says the province wants to make sure workers who lost their jobs are taken care of while helping companies as well.
“You’ll know and your listeners will know better than me, the challenges in the Interior with the beetle wood now gone. Fibre is a big, big challenge and so we want to make sure we’re supporting workers as they transition and making sure companies have the liquidity through this challenging time to get by.”
Moving forward, Horgan is optimistic despite the current global situation but he says there are many variables at play.
“Prices are coming up, that’s good but we’re a small open economy,” he said. “The biggest challenge of COVID quite frankly is not going to be how British Columbia manages it but how do our trading partners manage it.”
“If we have paralysis in the US on top of the the softwood lumber deal, that’s a big challenge for our exporters and if we have issues international or domestic disputes between our trading partners whether it be China Japan or Europe, that’s a challenge for forestries.”
Horgan says there needs to be communication between all stakeholders.
“We want to make sure we’re constantly in contact, working with the various unions, Indigenous people, community leaders.”
“The only way we’re going to get through this is if we’re all at the table and that means the province putting resources up to make that people continue talking and find new ways for our forest industry to work for our people and for our communities and it’s going got be tough without COVID but I’m confident forest dependent communities are going to hang together and they’re going to figure it out.”
