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Watchdogs of environment not against jobs

I am deeply concerned by your letter sent as mayor of Port McNeill, a community that prides itself on tree farming, to the president of the FCM.

Dear Mayor Furney,

I am deeply concerned by your letter sent as mayor of Port McNeill, a community that prides itself on tree farming, to the president of the FCM.

The letter clearly represents a shallow view of the nature of funding for marketing resource extraction.

It is very clear to me that the resource extraction companies need to have their marketing questioned and as I see it Canadians have only non profit organizations to stand up for their rights.

Resource extractors have very deep pockets and do not hesitate to pay lobbyists, spin doctors and marketing companies large sums to sell their plans to the public and government, - case in point, Enbridge was paid a reported $200 million by China and other Asian countries to sell the Gateway plan to Canada.

Why then are you, mayor Furney, so intent on calling out organizations that bring the alternate view forward? In a perfect world,  government would play this role for its citizens but it seems that without money to pay for lobbying, the voice of the people is never heard.

Canada does have many challenges and one glaring one is the wholesale bleeding of our natural resources in the form of raw and untreated goods going to other jurisdictions with no residual value left in our country.

We are losing jobs every time a raw log or a barrel of bitumen leaves without first being processed: you don’t get it, mayor Furney.

The watchdogs of our environment aren’t against jobs, they’re against foolish squandering of resources and polluters that look only for profit and not for sustainable clean job-creating opportunities that build a strong Canada and not a Canada devoid of resources and jobs.

Mayor Furney, you just need to look at what manufacturing aluminum has done for the Northwest to understand that we must promote sustainable, long-term processing jobs, not short term fixes like shipping raw logs to China.

Regards,

Randy Halyk,

Councillor, District of Kitimat.