EDMONTON – The UCP has dropped more work onto the desks of Alberta’s lean force of Forest Health Officers, after cutting the Forest Health Technicians who defend Alberta against the mountain pine beetle.
Kenney’s cruel move to eliminate seven positions means most Forest Health Officers will be battling the bug alone across the province. This devastating cut is part of a much larger UCP slash-and-burn on government services that will result in the abolishment of a staggering 57 positions in Forestry alone. About half of these jobs have already disappeared.
“An attack on Forestry isn’t just an attack on working people; it’s an attack on the environment and on our rural communities,” says AUPE Vice-President Mike Dempsey, who worked as a compliance forest officer for years.
“The Premier has zero respect for the specialized work our Forest Health staff do. These members are the guardians of Alberta’s backwoods – the eyes and ears of the province’s most remote corners. Without their watchful eye, more trees would be consumed by pests like they have been in Jasper and chewed down to a pile of matches, risking wildfires and other climate-change related disasters.”
Dempsey warns Alberta is already in the red: “A healthy forest captures more carbon than it leaks. But a dead forest, devastated by the mountain pine beetle, risks doing the opposite and running a greenhouse gas deficit adding to rising global temperatures.”
Forest Health Techs also shield the province from potential unfair profiteering. For years, the provincial government has outsourced Mountain Pine Beetle contracts to private corporations. Alberta pays these companies to control the pest population by completing aerial and ground surveys and controlling individual trees.
“Forest Health techs monitor them to ensure they’re not double-billing Albertans or charging for abandoned or sub-par work,” says Dempsey. “Our members are accountable to the public. Forest health and biodiversity are their top priorities and holding contractors to the same high standard is a big job. Simply transplanting the work of seven onto another small group of staff who are overworked is unfair, especially when the UCP is trying to claw back those workers’ wages.”
Across the board, AUPE members are reporting concerns over a shrinking Forestry fleet as the UCP chainsaws senior foresters, wildfire management specialists, wildfire rangers, wildfire techs, and information officers. Some worry seasonal conservation officers, who protect Alberta’s parks, are the next to go. Many of the layoffs raise serious health and safety concerns about working alone in dangerous winter conditions and burnout.
“If the premier thinks these crucial services are his for the taking because they’re ‘out of sight out of mind,’ he’s even more ignorant than I thought,” says Dempsey. “Our members are scattered all over this province, in big cities and backwoods alike, and we’re defending it from all corners.”
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For more information:
Celia Shea, Communications 780-720-8122