James Steidle

Last week, the politicians were tripping over each other to celebrate Canfor’s “investment” in a new “state of the art” sawmill in Houston, which will utilize artificial intelligence and who knows what other expensive offshore automated equipment. The CBC called it a “rare piece of good news,” even though Houston will have at least 100 fewer jobs at the end of all of this, including a two or three year period with no mill jobs other than the mill demolition and construction. The implication of all this is that we now owe Canfor big time. There better not be anymore pesky old-growth protections, we better not ban glyphosate spraying, we better not do anything that gets in the way of Canfor’s fire-trap landscapes of moose-starving pine plantations. Any time big city money rolls into a small town to replace the rural workforce with urban capital, you better believe we owe them.