Some controversial amendments to the Forestry Act in British Columbia, proposed through Bill 8, have been taken off the table.
“I’m pleased that the forest minister heard the calls from environmentalists, forest professionals and the opposition and has removed these sections from Bill 8,” said MLA Norm Macdonald, who serves as the forestry critic for the NDP.
Bill 8, the Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act, amends a variety of other legislation, and is what Macdonald referred to as “enabling legislation.” This means that it enables the government to lay out the details at a later time through regulation or policy.
The now removed amendments to the Forestry Act would have given the minister of forestry discretionary power to sign new tree farm licence agreements, and give corporations strong private property rights over vast areas of publicly owned land.
“These property rights are potentially quite valuable. Therefore you want to be sure that the public interest is protected, and that it is done as transparently as possible,” said Macdonald.
Macdonald’s office has received 3,000 emails regarding the proposed amendments, many of which dealt with concerns over privatization. He spent a lot of time discussing the matter with the minister, and is very pleased by the decision.
“We are coming out of a very tough number of years for the markets in forestry. We’re just now getting to a place where the American market is picking up,” he said. “We need a period of stability and calm, and with Bill 8 I think we would gone into a tumultuous time. I think the government did the right thing and removed the sections that people were worried about.”
Any controversy in the industry is the last thing foresters want right now says Macdonald, and he thinks that all stakeholders need to be involved in decisions like these.
“This is a time of tremendous challenge for the forest industry. It is also a time where we could find real opportunities,” he said. “But we will only maximize these opportunities if we all work together to make the best decisions.”
