Opposition leader Jeannot Volpe says the decisions made about silviculture are killing rural regions, but the provincial natural resources minister says sometimes governments have to make tough choices.
Volpe addressed Premier Shawn Graham in the legislature last week in response to provincial budget cuts made to silviculture.
Volpe asked the premier why the government killed the silviculture program.
"We all know the money was there."
Natural Resources Minister Donald Arseneault answered for the premier and said Volpe was once the minister of finance and knows how difficult it is to meet every demand made for money.
"We have to make some choices."
Arseneault added Volpe cut the budget for silviculture on Crown land by $3 million down to $13.1 million when he was the natural resources minister during the first term of Bernard Lord's government .
Even with the current reduction, he said, there is $15 million budgeted and twice as many trees will be planted than were planted under the Lord government.
"I have no lesson to be learned from the leader of the opposition."
Arseneault said 28 million trees will be planted throughout the province this year, which is the same amount as last year.
New Maryland-Sunbury West MLA Keith Ashfield asked what impact changes to the silviculture program will have on the workforce in rural New Brunswick.
"What job losses will there be in rural New Brunswick because of the cuts in this program?"
Arseneault said there is always an impact when you reduce funding to a program, but a private woodlot is a business.
Even with 50 per cent funded by the government, it is still a generous program, he said.
"Find me a business program that is as generous as that."
But Ashfield said the changes will cut the legs out from under the silviculture program.
"It will not exist."
Over 700 jobs will be lost in rural New Brunswick because of the cuts, he said.
"This is the worst time you could possibly have done this."
Graham gave his first response to opposition questions and said market conditions have changed in recent years.
The forest industry took a leave on silviculture programs on their own lands last year, he said.
"This year, the government is also taking the same initiative because of the market conditions."
Ashfield responded by saying the premier has been letting his ministers take the heat on important issues.
He said the federal government has transferred more money to the province and more has been spent in New Brunswick by them than there has been in years.
"The government has been squandering the resource of money coming from the federal government and it continues to do it.
York North MLA Kirk MacDonald said the federal government gave the province $100 million more this year.
"The money is there, but the will is not."
Woodstock MLA David Alward asked Arseneault and Graham to elaborate on the reductions in silviculture.
"How much less wood will be available in the system for our forestry sector?"
Arseneault said in the medium term there will still be the same wood supply available for New Brunswick mills.
"Silviculture is an investment for the future."
Alward said Volpe and the people of New Brunswick want to ensure forestry is a viable industry.
"They want to save the industry."
Graham said with the new cost-sharing agreement, landowners can receive up to 50 per cent of taxpayers money to pay for pre-commercial thinning and tree planting on their property.
"That is an investment for the future."
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