Forestry Faces Deep Cuts and Other Numbers on our Nation
Posted by Graham Lanktree
on Friday, October 22, 2010
2009 was Canadian Forestry's lowest production year on record
Photo: Eamon Mac Mahon
If you thought Canada’s auto industry looked bad during the recession, look to the trees. Since peaking in 2005, our forestry industry has lost some $13.4 billion in production. A steeper, but not much steeper, drop than the $12.2 billion in cuts to new cars.
And not a single branch — including forestry, lumber, printing and paper — has been spared. The losses suffered by forestry output and paper manufacturing are the deepest the industry has faced since records started being kept in the 1980s, helping to decimate profits in the industry by 44 percent in four years.
This is especially worrying since Industry Canada calls forestry "one of Canada's leading manufacturing sectors and largest net exporter," and a "cornerstone of the economy and a major component of the industrial structure and employment base of all regions of the country."
This news hasn’t been widely publicized and it’s exactly the sort of factual tidbit that you’ll find in the 2010 Canada Year Book, a collection of fascinating articles and charts put out by Statistics Canada on the numbers that make up our nation.
2010 Year Book photo.
Here are a few others we’ve collected to whet your appetite:
Energy:
Although the generation of wind power in Canada has increased in capacity from 137 megawatts in 2000 to 2,369 megawatts in 2008, electric generation from alternative energy sources (including wind, solar and tidal power) make up only 0.5 percent of our total energy output.
Groceries:
Incase you haven’t noticed more and more of them staking a claim on grocery store shelves, organic foods are on the rise. In 2007, 45 percent of all households reported purchasing organic foods at least often or sometimes.
Yet much of this food went to waste. Thirty eight percent of the solid food available in grocery stores, restaurants and our refrigerators in 2007 was thrown out — an equivalent of 183 kilograms per person.
And in April 2007, Leaf Rapids, Manitoba, became the first Canadian municipality to ban plastic grocery bags. In the same year 30 percent of households reported that they always use reusable bags for grocery shopping, while 41 percent report using them often or sometimes.
An aging population:
By 2017, Stats Can projects that senior citizens will make up a larger chunk of our population than children, calling it a "milestone in the country’s history." By 2036 seniors are projected to make up 23 to 25 percent of Canadians and 24 to 28 percent by 2061.
Comments (1)
I believe that, as a student of Canadian geography, this issue is of great importance. Forestry is one of the biggest industries in Canada, and if forestry goes down, then lumber, printing, and paper will go down with it.
I think this is a very big issue and worry for the people of Canada, especially those of British Columbia, and should be publicized more so the people may be able to do something about it.
Submitted by Canadian Marchesani on Sunday, December 05, 2010
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