Adrian Soldera, First Vice President of the Public and Private Workers of Canada (PPWC), delivers a passionate and urgent address to workers and community members across British Columbia. He focuses heavily on the critical crossroads facing BC’s vital forestry sector, highlighting how forestry has historically shaped local towns, families, and regional economies for generations, but is now under immense pressure due to mill closures, worker displacement, and ongoing economic instability across the interior and Vancouver Island.
Soldera calls for a fundamental shift in how the province manages and values its most precious resource, its forests. This includes ending the export of raw logs, pointing out that while BC exported over $11 billion in wood products in 2022, far too many of those shipments consisted of unprocessed logs that drained valuable jobs, innovation, and economic value away from local communities.
Soldera highlights positive regulatory steps, such as requirements for cedar and cypress harvested in BC’s interior to be fully manufactured before export into high-value products like siding, flooring, shingles, and fencing. These regulations have been welcomed by the Independent Wood Processors Association as a crucial step to retain value-added manufacturing and keep forestry jobs at home.
Soldera also addresses proposals to close loopholes that permit minimally processed wood to leave the province, arguing that ending raw log exports entirely is essential for protecting both forests and livelihoods.
He emphasizes that supporting forestry means prioritizing the people who depend on it, ensuring that economic benefits remain within local communities through investments in modern mills, responsible forest management, and resilient, innovative practices that secure sustainable jobs for future generations.