The BC Ready-Mixed Concrete Association's members have 120 plants in B.C. that employ over 9,300 people and generate an annual economic impact of $1.4 billion. Almost every community in B.C. with a population of 5,000 or more has at least one ready-mixed concrete facility.

People work in these facilities. People with families. More people - and more families - make their living by supplying these facilities with sand and gravel. And cement - the 'glue' in concrete - comes to these community facilities from B.C.'s three cement plants, where more people work, and on whom more families depend. Concrete is a part of our homes, schools, hospitals, and care facilities. It's a material like so many others made and sourced in B.C. that goes into making our buildings strong and safe. It's a good material. It's made by British Columbians.

Concrete supports B.C. families and the communities they live in.

You might be one of these families, or maybe you know one. So imagine how you'd have felt two years ago, when out of the blue, with no real consultation with the concrete industry or concern for our families, Gordon Campbell launched a policy, enshrined it in legislation, and called it Wood First? We can tell you how we felt and still do - that in one stroke of the pen, Mr. Campbell said that in his B.C., our families don't matter.

The idea behind 'Wood First' sounded good. Our province is a big producer of wood, many of our communities and our families depend on it for their direct or indirect livelihood, and as we export most of our wood abroad under Wood First-type marketing plans, we should value Wood First in our own province as well.

Problem is, we already valued it. Wood, along with concrete, steel, bricks, and glass, is a common component in buildings built in B.C. Our homes, offices, schools, hospitals and care facilities are a blend of all these components, a blend determined by an array of professionals and craftsmen working under the guidance of the National Building Code of Canada and the B.C. Building Code. The codes are the product of long history and experience and set out proper building materials and performance requirements.

But in demanding the use of wood first, Mr. Campbell's legislation undermined the experienced approach of the B.C. Code. His policy requires government agencies and municipalities to use wood instead of the best and most appropriate building material. Mr. Campbell cast aside the cardinal building motto of using the right material for the job. In doing so, he sent a powerful message to our families, and to those outside B.C. who might have the temerity to think they could be successful in B.C. if they worked or invested in any building product other than wood. In Mr. Campbell's B.C., concrete and other materials - and the people and families who supply them - didn't count.

For two years, our anger and our families' dismay at this B.C. government dismissal has been simmering. Then, in early May, a six-storey wood-frame development (the first approved under a revised B.C. Building Code allowing such construction) burnt to the ground in Richmond. And as a result of an article on the editorial page in the Vancouver Sun on May 26th, in which the Canadian Wood Council responded to the fire, our anger roiled.

The Council leapt to the defence of the six-floor wood structure, and by default, the wood-first policy that spawned it, by advising that wood is a safe and durable building material, that we've been living in wood houses for a long time, and the building wasn't finished and thus not equipped for fire safety.

That we've gone to six-storeys of wood from four-storeys isn't the point. As long as the safety folks - especially the fire departments - say it's okay, then it's okay. That wood is an acceptable part of building isn't the point. That concrete, steel and other products are part of building - and should be - is the point.

So, we've had enough of a policy and a law and their subsidized supporters saying our hard-working families and the communities we live in don't count as much as other families and their communities.

That's the issue for us and, we hope, for Premier Clark. Through the actions of Mr. Campbell, a legislative leg-up has been awarded to one type of building material. That legislative subsidy puts wood, and the families that work so hard to supply it, on high footing. But it does so at the expense of other families who, while perhaps not as numerous, work equally as hard to produce concrete and other building materials, and seek only to compete and thrive in B.C.

Mr. Campbell forced municipalities and government agencies to use wood above all other materials - instead of the best material for a particular construction component. So far, 33 municipalities have adopted Wood First and, as media are reporting, are building hospitals, assisting living and care homes, and other public buildings primarily out of wood. Some of these buildings include wooden elevator shafts and wooden stairwells, and municipalities are considering wood features that have yet to be embraced or endorsed as safe by any other building code.

But with many of these buildings and features once supplied by our industry and others, it should surprise no one that local companies who provide concrete, bricks, steel and other building materials are going under, their skilled workers effectively barred from the marketplace and its opportunities as a result of the wood-first subsidy.

Creating jobs in one area at the expense of skilled jobs in others seems more like a mug's game than it does sound economic policy. How on earth is that good for B.C. families?

Nobody is saying that wood is a poor building material. When used appropriately - just like government legislation and policy - wood is good.

But the Wood-First policy of Gordon Campbell ignores the history, experience and success in building in B.C. with the right materials. Put simply, the former premier's Wood-First whim is destroying the building marketplace in B.C. communities, and damaging the families that depend on that community marketplace.

Like the HST as originally announced, the Wood-First policy was poorly designed, poorly implemented, and simply not thought out. Faced with the 'junk policy' that was Mr. Campbell's HST, Premier Clark has come to the aid of B.C. families - as her families-first commitment said she would. Premier Clark has demonstrated she has no hesitation in revisiting public policy if it is not good for B.C. families.

The time of renewal in politics offers the hope that oversights will be acknowledged, wrongs righted, and mistakes fixed. If, in addressing the impacts of her predecessor's Wood-First policy and restoring order, safety, confidence and opportunity in the construction of B.C.'s community buildings, Premier Clark will have delivered on all three.

More than that, she will be taking another step forward in putting all BC families first, and for that, will have their gratitude.        

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