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The modern supply chain has muddied the waters of where your food, lumber and other resources come from. We forget that most of what we use begins in nature. Young children don’t understand that milk and eggs come from animals. The same disconnect can be seen with all the materials that build your homes, that feed your factories, that drive trade. Everything you use or eat flows from somewhere else.

So why should you care about small towns in B.C. that are losing their industries? It’s very simple. Like the rivers of old, if we go dry, you will go dry.

If my mill closes and another town’s mill closes, building your house gets more expensive. If a rancher or farmer loses a crop to climate change, your food gets more expensive — or disappears altogether. If our Interior tourism economy goes down due to wildfire or some other effect of climate change, the dollars we harvest from tourists don’t roll down to your bus charter companies, to the taxi drivers and gift shops, to the Vancouver hotels and restaurants that support your friends and neighbours.

If our workers are out of work, we don’t buy your new cars, we don’t use your services, we don’t buy new clothes or furniture that you sell or make.

My one town is a drop in the bucket to you, but when one town after another goes down, when farmers and ranchers go down, eventually the effects will trickle down into your world. We are the birthplace of the wealth of this province. We are the place you escape to, we are the big backyard you dream about while zoning out on SkyTrain or while you work away at your office desk.