A commentary by a Victoria resident.

I have great sympathy for mill workers in Crofton and Chemainus and the other 43 mills in towns throughout B.C. that have closed because there is “insufficient viable fibre supply.”

This statement is smoke to hide the fact that the companies, with the complicity of the province, have over-harvested the forest since at least the 1970s.

Second-growth trees are not as voluminous as virgin timber. Second-growth is harvested in a last gasp to get as much profit from the woods before shuttering mills due to “insufficient viable fibre supply”.

The........

© Times Colonist