The top 10 companies in BC control x% of its cut. If the Canfor-Slocan merger goes through, the resulting company will control x% of the cut all by itself and will be a virtual monopoly in many parts of BC.

While forest lands in BC are supposedly held by us – the public – the BC Liberals have been giving forest corporations ever greater control over the land under the guise of “revitalizing” the forest sector.

The Liberals ripped up the “social contract” that built many of BC’s communities. Local forests were tied to local mills through something called “appurtenancy,” whereby a company would get cutting rights only if they ran a local mill. This is now gone.

The Liberals have also made forest tenures more like private property by allowing companies to sub-divide and sell their tenures without the 5% clawback of tenure for small business previously in place. Now they can do this virtually without approval from government – needing only to live up to undefined “competition needs”.