There have been a lot of changes in the forest industry of British Columbia.

The Province of British Columbia and our primary lumber manufacturers are doing their best to use as much of this wood as possible for LUMBER before the structrual capabilities of this wood deteriorates.

Lumber industry representatives sat on the committee that awarded funding for Forestry Innovation Investment (FII), a Federally and Provincially government funded organization that distributed funds to British Columbia agencies for wood related activities.  They made it very clear to any organization whom received funds for mountain pine beetle related activities, that they were NOT to promote the blue color of the wood in any manner.

We can conclude that the primary industry then has control over government funds, and that they would prefer to sweep the blue stain of mountain pine beetle wood under the carpet in order to continue to sell dimensional lumber to consumers.

I am sure that this saved a lot of jobs at the time, don't get me wrong, we created a lot of employment in our province producing lumber. But what about the secondary manufacturers; Small business? Value added wood products?

It is time for small businesses to step up to the plate.  Let's stop sitting by and watching our primary industry and government try to deal with our mountain pine beetle issue.  It's time for us to do something about it.  We can now gain access to this wood by using a Category 2 tenure.

This wood is unique to our century, it's a gem in the forests.

Why let our government burn it?