Rick Jeffery Dept: NEW LEGISLATION TOPROTECT LOGGING CONTRACTORS VICTORIA Theantiquated Woodworker Lien Act will be replaced with a new Forestry ServiceProviders Protection Act, Forests and Range Minister Pat Bell announced today. With theintroduction of today s legislation, we re acting on our August 2009 throne speechcommitment to strengthen payment protection for forestry contractors, saidBell. By enabling a fund and providing for liens on forest products, we reensuring that logging contractors will be protected financially. In 2007, whenPope & Talbot declared bankruptcy, not all logging contractors receivedpayment for their services. The Forestry Service Providers Protection Act isdesigned to prevent situations like that from happening again. Under the act,forestry service providers are those who provide contracted services, includingfalling, yarding and hauling timber to owners of forest product companies.Contractors will be able to register liens under the Personal Property SecurityAct to ensure payment of services. At the last TLA convention, Premier Campbell said he believed thatcontractors should be paid for the work they do, said Dave Lewis, executivedirector, Truck Loggers Association. This legislation sets the framework for afund that will help ensure this happens. While there is still a great dealof work to do, we are grateful for the commitment this government has madeto contractors, their employees and the communities they support provincewide. The new actenables the establishment of the Forestry Service Providers Compensation Fundand enables contributions to the fund through levies and other means. The fundwill be administered arm s length from government, and forestry serviceproviders will be able to apply to the fund for payment if the companies theyprovide services to declare insolvency. This legislationsupports a healthy, competitive contracting environment, which benefits theforest sector as a whole, said Rick Jeffery, president and CEO, Coast ForestProducts Association. That being said, we do hope the legislation will notneed to be invoked. In developing thenew legislation, the Ministry of Forests and Range formed a working group withrepresentatives from major licensees and logging associations, as well as anexpert in lien legislation. We re pleased to seegovernment living up to its commitment to ensure loggers are paid for the workthey do, said MaryAnne Arcand, executive director, member services, CentralInterior Logging Association. This legislation and the accompanying fund putour members on a more solid footing in the event of licensee insolvency. The WoodworkerLien Act was established in the early 1900s and focused on protectingindividual workers as opposed to the logging contractors sector. About 3,000contractors provincewide are expected to benefit from the legislative changes. The act will come in force through regulation. A copy of the act, asintroduced in the B.C. legislature during first reading, is available online at www.leg.bc.ca/39th2nd/1st read/index.htm . Today slegislation is the latest in a series of actions to attract investment andimprove the competitiveness of the B.C. forest sector. Recent efforts includepromoting bioenergy opportunities, implementing a Wood First policy, expandinglumber exports to China and introducing the HST, which is expected to save theforest sector $140 million annually. As
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