B.C. Liberal Party leader Christy Clark took her jobs and economy message to the North Shore on Thursday, making a campaign stop at North Vancouver’s Fibreco Export terminal to say her party is best-positioned to defend resource jobs and B.C.’s economic interests.
Wearing a blue hardhat, Clark climbed into a small pile of Fibreco’s wood pellets and scooped them up in her hands before walking through a warehouse to speak to reporters, flanked by Fibreco managers and North Vancouver Liberal candidates Naomi Yamamoto and Jane Thornthwaite.
Clark said Fibreco, which provides work for 50 employees, is a reminder that B.C.’s forest industry is still a big economic driver for the province.
“The biggest forest-dependent town in British Columbia is Metro Vancouver,” said Clark.
“Loggers need mills, mills need terminals and terminals are an important well-paying employer here on the North Shore and throughout the Lower Mainland.”
Clark said the forest industry has diversified by getting into areas like the wood pellets shipped by Fibreco and needs to make more inroads into markets in China, India and Korea.
Clark added the forest industry provides 60,000 jobs in B.C. “That is what is on the line for B.C.,” she said. “We are the only party British Columbians can count on to stand up for them.”
Workers need “a government that has their back,” she said. “That leadership is more important now than it has ever been.”
Clark’s campaign stop Thursday coincides with increasing concern on trade issues between the U.S. and Canada. Most recently, U.S. President Donald Trump has indicated support for a U.S. plan to hike import duties on B.C. softwood lumber heading to the U.S. by over 20 per cent.
The U.S. and Canada have been locked in a dispute about a deal on softwood lumber since the last agreement expired in 2015.
On Thursday, the NDP campaign said a former U.S. trade representative has indicated the U.S. and Canada were close to an agreement under the Obama administration until somebody on the Canadian side decided a better deal might be possible under Trump.
In response to questions about that, Clark said Thursday that “everybody” on the Canadian side of the negotiations had rejected the deal. “It was a proposal to go from 32 per cent of market share to 22 per cent of market share,” she said. “It was a lousy deal for workers. It was a lousy deal for Canada.”
“I don’t think B.C. wants a leader who will just take any deal, no matter how bad it is for B.C. workers,” she added.
Clark also suggested NDP leader John Horgan hasn’t taken much of an interest in the B.C. softwood issue.
Clark also criticized Horgan for what she described as his plan to “send pink slips” to workers who are employed on the Site C dam project.
The Liberal leader said she has also asked Ottawa to consider a ban on U.S. thermal coal being shipped to Asia through B.C. ports if the U.S. doesn’t back down on the softwood duties.
She said B.C. also has the power to put a fee on coal shipments under the Emergency Management Act that would be so high “it would no longer make any sense (to ship the coal that way) because you could no longer make any money.”
West Vancouver Sea-to-Sky NDP candidate Michelle Livaja said Thursday in response to Clark’s campaign stop that the Liberals don’t have much to be proud of on the forestry file. Shipment of raw logs is something the NDP wants curtailed in favour of more value-added industry, she said. “A log leaving is a job leaving. It’s important for us to keep those jobs here.” The closure of sawmills has also been a “tremendous cause for concern,” said Livaja.
Livaja said Clark’s Liberal Party has received large donations from multinational forest companies like Weyerhaeuser, which have been actively promoting increasing duties to the U.S. government.
Dana Taylor, the Green Party candidate for the West Vancouver Sea-to-Sky riding said the Greens are also concerned about the export of raw logs from B.C.
Value-added industries need more support from government, he said. “But the B.C. Liberal energies have been on the low-hanging fruit,” Taylor said. “They’re supporting the people who have supported them.”
According to Elections B.C., Fibreco has donated $7,200 to the B.C. Liberals since the last election. Weyerhaeuser donated $6,100 to the NDP and $66,250 to the B.C. Liberals.
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