Just hot from the PRESS and the big reason we need to revamp
our building practices.
The wood supply is disappearing fast costs are up and we must
act now if we are to make any changes that work.
Full Story at: http://cknw.com/News/National/Article.aspx?id=30105
at 11:34 on June 21, 2008, EDT.
Thousands of B.C. forest workers jobless as sawmills shutdown, some fear forever
Dirk Meissner, THE CANADIAN PRESS
VICTORIA - Carol Perron says she can't come right out and say it, but deep down she knows she's making plans for two deaths: Her husband's and her community's.
Perron lives in Mackenzie, a forest industry town in B.C.'s rugged north that's been dropped to its knees by a failing U.S. housing market and the strong Canadian dollar.
Most of Mackenzie's 4,700 residents are employed in the forest industry, but every sawmill in the surrounding area is shut down indefinitely and more than 1,200 people are out of work.
"I don't think we'll see a change here until about 2010," said Perron, echoing B.C. government forecasts that at least 18 months of hard times are ahead.
Perron said she and her husband, Jack, have lived in Mackenzie for 37 years. They raised four boys and dreamed of staying in the community, located about 185 kilometres north of Prince George, for the rest of their lives.
Now Jack, a former heavy equipment operator at the downed Canfor sawmill, is terminally ill and the economic prospects for Mackenzie are bleak. The Perrons are being forced to consider other plans, she said.
"It puts a halt in everything that you are looking forward to in terms of your retirement," she said. "We wanted to be the grandparents around our kids. This would be devastating because that would mean we would have to move."
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