October 20, 2001

Abandoning Stewardship?

At a very personal level, people immediately feel the effect of cuts to health services, but cuts to the economic ministries might remain hidden for years. Sometimes it takes a report from the Auditor General to reveal that the Ministry of Forests hasn't collected all the revenue that the government has coming, or that logging roads traveled by the public aren't inspected because of a lack of staff.

The Ministry of Forests' website proclaims "The British Columbia Ministry of Forests is the steward of the timber, range and recreation resources of British Columbia's unreserved public (Crown) forest land, which covers two-thirds of the province (about 59 million hectares)." An average cut of 35% in all but two ministries, and some cuts as high as 50%, could leave our forests open to neglect through bad stewardship.

In addition to bad stewardship, small communities could be hurt if they lost their forestry office. Half the Regional Offices (from 6 to three) and maybe half of the Districts (presently 41) could be lost in a 35% cutback. This would be devastating to small communities like Williams Lake, Nelson, Smithers, Salmon Arm, Alexis Creek, Merrit, and Castlegar which are already hard hit by the forest sector downturn.

If government is going to manage on a results oriented basis, it needs to be able to monitor the results. Even if government intends to further burden the forest industry by offloading responsibilities and expenses currently undertaken by the ministry, it is necessary to monitor unless it wants to risk losing tens of millions of dollars in revenue through "sympathetic administration". With the US beating down the industry, no one needs to play such games.

The July mini-budget allocated $539 million for the Ministry of Forests including 4,083 full time equivalent staff. In addition, Forest Renewal BC was estimated to receive $167 million in stumpage revenue for fiscal 2001/02. 231 positions in the Ministry of Forests are funded by Forest Renewal BC. Forest Renewal BC was expected to spend $294 million in fiscal 2001/02.

The 2001/02 Performance Plan renamed Service Plans under the new government) for the Ministry of Forests shows the following distribution of budget and resources.

	budget (millions)	staffing FTEs
Regulation of Forest and Range Practices	54	572
Land-Use Planning	29	314
Timber and Range Su;ly, Planning and Determination	16	169
Market Access	5	30
Protection of Forest and Range Resources from Fire and Pests	99	726
Forest Road Infrastructure	23	146
Forest and Range Productivity Improvements	32	249
Tenure Administration	31	354
Small Business Special Account	132	560
Recreation and Non-Timber/Non Range Benefits	8	84
First Nations	10	100
Revenue Collection	30	318
Human Resources	11	118
Corporate Governance	34	333
Total:	514	4073

You may notice that the budget shown in the Plan tabled in April totals less than the July mini-budget. That is because the new government increased the Ministry's budget only to announce two months later that it should prepare for options of up to a 50% cut over the next three years.

On February 19, 2002, Finance Minister Collins will introduce a budget in the legislature and all ministries will have to table Service Plans showing three year projections. That is when we can see whether the New Era government is going to abandon efforts to control the pine beetle in order to cut the budget, or whether it will take a greater chance with fire suppression, or whether it will turn a blind eye to improper scaling and revenue collection. Whatever it does, a detailed comparison of the plans that are required under the Budget Transparency and Accountability Act will allow us to anticipate the consequences of the cuts before a report from the Auditor General emerges years later to report on any disasters.

At a time when the world is watching our forest practices, when market share depends on forest management certification, it is not time to gut the staff that protects our most valuable resources.