🚀 go-pugleaf

As representatives from four major unions walked away from the CORE table
on Tuesday, the Provincial government's complicity with big business was
put on display once again.  Environmental groups have been arguing that by
promoting the liquidation of the last of B.C.'s old growth the government
is destroying our natural heritage and selling ut B.C. workers.  The
government's refusal to discuss retraining programs showed an obvious lack
of any commitment to working people and has left four unions of forest
workers with no choice but to leave the negotiating table.

Although the federal government estimates that logging companies will have
cut all available old grwoth by the year 2008 and despite constant mill
closures and industry "restructuring", the B.C. government continues to
pour subsidies into an irresponsible timber industry.  Friends' of
Clayoquot Sound spokesperson Valerie Langer sympathizes with the situation
of the union members, "We can understand the IWA and others' frustration
at having to leave the negotiating table.  The industry keeps telling us
how important they are to the economy but the government is actually
losing money on the timber industry and in the last fifteen years there
have been approximately 4,000 direct forestry jobs lost in the
Alberni-Clayoquot region alone."

In the ten year period from 1982 to 1992 the Ministry of Forests reported
a net loss of $711.8 million.  Canada gets fewer jobs per unit of wood cut
than any other industrialized country.  Yearly U.I payments in the
Alberni-Clayoquot region surpass $30 million.  Despite statistics like
these, the Provincial government is refusing to recognize that its
policies are heading us towards an environmental and labour disaster.  "It
is unconscionable that the government should be willing to subsidize
destructive logging policies but will not take responsibility for the
impact that unsustainable logging is having on local communities." said
Valerie Langer of the Friends of Clayoquot Sound.

The Friends of Clayoquot Sound have been calling for the protection of the
biodiversity of Clayoquot Sound and a transition to sustainable logging
practices across the province.

For more information 725-4218.