It’s been a rough year in the forestry sector for the province and Stikine region according to MLA Doug Donaldson.
The forestry sector saw many curtailments and shutdowns including in Houston where the mills went down to a four-day work-week.
According to Donaldson, the downturn in the forestry sector because of global prices, global influences and the lack of beetle kill wood.
He explained what needs to be done to help the forestry sector in 2020.
“What we have to do is use more of the wood in the forests instead of burning slash piles, for instance, we need to bring that wood out and make it available for value-added purposes, whether it’s counter production or more of a bio-economy or biofuels,” he said.
Donaldson said there were some positive moments in Victoria during 2019, like when the province introduced the Declaration of the Rights of the Indigenous People Act.
“We had people come from far and wide in the Province including Hereditary Chiefs from the Wet’suwet’en, Namoks was there as well as Chad Day, the president of the Tahltan Central Council,”
Donaldson said in 2020 he hopes to get back into visiting schools in the region to help teach students what the MLA job is, how the system works and to get students more interested in voting