© Outside the Terminal Forest Products mill in Vancouver a truck is loaded up with cants for cross-border shipping.

B.C. government aims to crack down
on exports of semi-processed wood

At long last a government is starting
to talk about cracking down on the
exports of cants from the country.
Cants are in effect “square logs” in
which a forest products manufacturer
will do a minimal amount of process-
ing to in order to export large dimen-
sion timbers.

To the IWA the exports of cants and
other forms of semi-processed timber,
are just another form of exporting
jobs. In effect the export of cants is
just an end-run by the industry to get
around log export restrictions that
exist.

Take a high-value log, pass it
through a saw that cuts 2 or 4 sides
off, and you've got a cant.

For decades the union has fought
for the banning of the exports of such
square logs. The IWA has repeatedly
called upon governments to take
action against this practice. Exporting
logs, cants, or other variations of non-
processed or semi-processed logs is a
form of exporting jobs. It is especially
painful to see the export of logs from
public lands.

Since the public owns the timber it
should get the highest return possible
in terms of jobs and economic activi-

In late July B.C. Forests Minister
Andrew Petter announced that the
government wants the exports of
semi-processed logs to stop. The
Minister has requested that the
province’s Forest Sector Strategy
Committee to strike a sub-committee
to meet and discuss the issue and
come up with some

Workable recommendations. Those
recommendations should be present-
ed to the government in the fall of this
year.

_ Petter has asked the industry to vol-
untarily comply with the request to
eliminate the exports of such com-
modities. He told the industry that
voluntary compliance, in which the

industry polices itself, would be ©

preferable to legislation.

As recently as the October 1993
National union convention, held in
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, the IWA
reaffirmed its complete and unalter-
able position that the federal and

6/LUMBERWORKER/AUGUST, 1994

provincial governments legislatively
ban the shipments of raw logs and
cants out of the country.

“We know from experience that
when the industry is left to police
itself that the results are often less
than expected,” says IWA-CANADA
third vice-president Warren Ulley.
“We believe that the industry will only
comply if they are forced to by legisla-
tion.”

oN

of raw logs is limited

ment, under pressure
put in a “fee in lieu of

combination with a log shortage in the
province as a whole, log exports have
dropped off to a fraction of what they
used to be. i

But still companies try to go around

the log export restriction by expo
cants, And most of the cants are
the highest. grades softwoods that are
available such as Douglas fir, spruce
and hemlock.
Many of those cants are the clear
timber that are the best the province
has to offer. So it's a crime to see the
wood leave in such a form.

Local 1-217 member and union offi-
cer Jim Parker comes from a mill in
which at least 50% of the production
leaves the mill site is in the form of
cants. At the Terminal Forest
Products Mainland Sawmill in south
Vancouver the company bases the
majority of its production in the cus-
tom cutting of logs into cants.

Internally, the local union has been

putting pressure on the company to
break the wood down further in the
plant. At a recent meeting the compa-
ny told the union that it is looking at
replacing the main edger which can
cut up to a 14” timber.
Brother Parker says that the com-
pany is considering replacing this
edger with a pony-rig to allow for
greater break-down.

Although he sees that companies
are feeling pressure to move away
from cants he says “I don’t have a lot
of confidence that we are going to see
companies get away from them and
into producing more value-added
products unless they are forced to.”

“Basically what is being exported as
cants is the stuff that used to be
exported as raw logs,” adds Parker.
“They (the customers) don’t have
other sources for getting this type of
high grade wood if we shut down the
cant exports so they will have to buy
higher processed wood.”

Photo by Jim Parker

But the union vice-president com-
mends the government for taking
action, however limited.

“At least the NDP is trying to deal
with the issue,” says Brother Ulley.
“Governments in the past have shied
away from the issue either because
they refused to or didn’t care about
these form of exports.”

The exports of cants mainly takes
place on the coast where the purchase

Continued on page eleven

¢ The export of cants is the export of jobs and the best wood there is. They are really square logs.

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