TAXPAYER MONEY FOR MINING ... WHAT ABOUT FORESTRY?

Responding to the N.S. Mining Association looking for a taxpayer handout to assist them in finding and building very polluting mine sites. Nothing could be more polluting than a gold mine. Forestry is preparing for a transition away from supplying wood fibre to Northern Pulp to a more sustainable forest management and harvesting plan. The forest industry is looking to expand the product line past sawn lumber. It is looking to get more lumber from each and every log using thin kerf sawmills. That will reduce the mill wood waste stream which is now sold to the pulp mills at a very low price. Lumber sells for about eight times the price of wood chips, bark and sawdust. So why make these low value products when alternative products made from the waste sell for much more. Harvest methods in a sustainable select cut forest doesn’t leave the huge polluted pits that most mining leaves for taxpayers to clean up. We don’t kill all life in rivers and streams. We encourage eco-tourism in our managed forest lots. And we supply jobs for rural residents that are good paying, often in areas where child poverty is highest in all of Canada. Our minimum wage is $15 hour. Machine operators are much more. Our mills don’t send out plumes of cancer causing smoke products thus reducing health care costs and premature death. We would gladly accept $8 million from taxpayers. That would buy about 20 thin kerf sawmill setups for various areas spread around the province. That allows shorter hauls of raw logs and more hauls of lumber and manufactured products. We would export some lumber and expand the maple syrup industry which is also an export product. Change always equals jobs. Don Wilson Brule Point, N.S. Sustainable Forest Products and Services