When I was home recently I found there was a lot of confusion about the timber supply and job loss numbers I had commented on in the press. Some people were more angry than confused, some were angry at me.

Let me try to clear up some of the confusion and address people’s anger.

First, the numbers are not mine. The timber supply documents released to the public come from internal government assessments of the state of our pine beetle ravaged forests. The documents clearly indicate that all the companies operating in our area played a major role in this analysis and that it was the companies that were raising the alarm about log shortages in the near future. These documents are available on both my website and the government’s. Continue reading →

Another worker lost his life in a sawmill yesterday. There will be yet another investigation, more recriminations and second guessing, but nothing will change the fact that another human being went to work and won’t ever come home.

I spent some time with the workers from the Lakeland Mill last night and stood with them as they silently reflected on this most recent tragedy at another BC sawmill. I had some explaining to do regarding comments ascribed to me in the media about the future of the Lakeland Mill that had made some of the workers angry.

During the evening I was able to speak with workers who were in the mill the night it exploded, men who rescued their co-workers, stripped off their burned clothes, and gave what first aid and comfort they could while they waited for the ambulances to arrive.

It was a sober reminder that while we argue about what could and should have been done, who’s to blame, and what needs to be done now, there are people who will be both physically and emotionally scarred because the system of essentially self-regulated workplaces failed them.

For too long we’ve bought into the mantra that we can penny pinch on enforcement and replace standards and regulations with voluntary compliance and industry-led safety councils and still have the highest health and safety standards in our workplaces. We can’t and we don’t, as recent events have so tragically proved.

If we’re truly going to honour those who have lost their lives in this most recent and catastrophic round of workplace incidents, then we have to reassert the need for government regulations and standards and for stringent enforcement of those standards through unannounced inspections and more inspectors. Workers’ voices must be listened to in the design of safety systems and during the inspection and compliance process.

In short, government regulations and enforcement are the best tools we have to protect the public interest and improve the safety of workers. It’s time to halt deregulation and the pretense that industry can both maximize profits and protect workers (and the environment). To be clear, this is not an indictment of industry, or of the specific companies involved in these most recent incidents. It is an indictment of the ideology of self-regulation and minimalist government. In a profit-driven economy, government must play an active role in protecting the public interest through best practice regulations in order to prevent a race to the bottom that puts workers and the environment at risk.