In British Columbia, we don’t treat forests like the essential infrastructure they are.
We treat them like a bank account to be drained. And we’re all paying the price.
Every year, BC taxpayers spend $365 million to prop up industrial forestry. That’s public money used to subsidize a system that exports raw logs, kills jobs, and fuels disasters.
Meanwhile, disaster costs are exploding. The 2021 heat dome, floods, and fires cost this province between $10.6 and $17.1 billion. That’s not just bad luck. Science confirms that decades of clearcutting have made floods, fires, and droughts worse.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
The New Forest Act is a legislative proposal to flip the script.
It recognizes that forests are infrastructure. They regulate water. They moderate climate. They reduce risk. Like bridges, roads, and hospitals – functioning, intact primary forests protect and sustain our lives and our economy.
We don’t destroy bridges to make a quick buck. We don’t torch hospitals or rip up highways and call it economic growth. But that’s exactly what BC has done with forests.
BC must invest in its infrastructure, not tear it down.
The New Forest Act makes that happen by:
- Ending corporate control over public land
- Shutting down subsidies to raw log exporters
- Protecting and restoring nature’s services: water, fire protection, climate moderation
- Bringing jobs back to communities: restoration, value-added, eco-tourism
- Turning forestry from a taxpayer loss into a revenue stream for BC
This isn’t just about environmentalism. It’s about economic survival. It’s about fixing a system that’s draining our public wealth while degrading the natural infrastructure beneath our feet.
The current system puts corporate profits first. The New Forest Act puts BC first.
This is how we future-proof the province.
We are not anti-logging. We are pro-future.
