"I'm not here today to say it's going to be all roses every day and every month between now and 10 years from now."

Premier Gordon Campbell, at the 2006 Truck Loggers Association convention.

Turns out that's one of the best non-promises Campbell ever made. By his own admission yesterday, the coastal forest industry has had about one sniff of the roses in the past decade -- one time when it could look back at a fairly profitable year.

But an address to the truck loggers convention is a fixture on the premier's calendar most years. And those stalwarts of the industry need some glimmer of optimism in order to keep them from giving up completely.

So a premier -- any premier -- can be forgiven for doing a little cheerleading. Even if sometimes it sounds delusional in light of what's really going on.

The quote from 2006 shows when reality started dawning. Three years earlier, Campbell addressed much a bigger gathering of loggers in Vancouver and challenged them to imagine 2010. "Let's think of an industry where customers are clamouring for our products because they're so good, and they're thinking of paying a premium for B.C. products because we do such a good job of adding value and meeting their needs."

He asked them to dream about maximizing investment and opportunities. "This is the year that forestry is going to thrive ... This is the year we are going to open up new markets. We are going to take on the competition and we are going to win."

Few of those audacious dreams came true. Campbell's speeches since then have been a series of exhortations to keep plugging away, mixed with sober recognition of how tough times keep getting. The 2010 version continued the theme. Campbell summed up the last few years as "volatile trending in the wrong direction." And he continued to pin most of the industry's hopes on China.

If builders there just started using lumber for the top floors and the roofs of most residential units, the demand would keep B.C. loggers going forever.

Work has been underway for several years on overcoming "cultural resistance" to that change. It's starting to pay off, but it will take a lot more before B.C. can count on China as a major customer.

As a measure of how intent -- some might say desperate -- B.C. is on closing the deal, Campbell cited earthquakes like the one in Haiti as a selling point for wood-frame construction.

After convention-goers had bowed their heads in prayer for the people of Haiti earlier, Campbell said it was "interesting to think of what would Haiti look like today if it had been built of wood instead of cinderblock. The fact is, there'd be a lot of buildings that would still be standing."

Campbell said the Chinese used to think wood construction was more dangerous.

But after the devastating Sichuan quake in 2008, they noticed a lot of wood buildings escaped major damage. B.C. and Canada worked hard to confirm the impression that wood is more quake-proof.

Campbell also went farther than usual in discussing the U.S. market.

The standard line has been to advocate seeking Asian markets to offset the temporary slump in the U.S.

Yesterday, Campbell appeared to be giving up on the U.S. market.

Over the next 10 years, "the American economy is going to go through some pretty difficult times," he said. "Since 1988 we've connected our wagon to the American economy and we're going to have to de-couple that and start looking across the Pacific."

On the domestic front, Campbell has in the past offered the truck loggers a "working round table," a coast recovery plan, a revitalization program and assorted other visions.

This year, the only thing Campbell had to offer the truck loggers was the harmonized sales tax. It will save them $4,300 on the cost of a new pickup truck, according to the premier's calculations.

If any of them are in the position to buy a new pickup truck, that should convince them to hold off until July.

lleyne@tc.canwest.com