Big problems,
simple solution

By MITCH ANDERSON
THE SOFTWOOD lumber war is nat going
well, a big problem for British Cotumbia.

Not only has the US government imposed
19 per cent duty on Canadian lumber imports,
but many of the eastern provinces seem to be
cutting themselves loose from the westernmost
renegade in the woods,

And who can blame them? With the stakes
so high, who wants to take the rap for the sys-

tematic abuses by B.C. forest companies and -

the shockingly low stumpage rates the provin-
cial government charges for logging on Crown
land?

_B.C.’s situation is not pretty...

A recent report by Sierra Legal Defence

Fund showed that in a two-and-a-half year per-
iod alone nearly one third of the logging in
B.C.’s interior generated only $10 per truck-
load revenue to the taxpayer.

To picture the volume of wood sold by the
BC government at this shockingly small rate,
visualize enough trucks to stretch end to end
from the Yukon border to the tip of South
America.

During that same period, companies such as
International Forest Products acknowledged
that they routinely engaged in.a questionable
practice called grade setting, a way of lower-
ing stumpage rates by logging low-quality
wood first.

This generated enormous savings to Interfor

_and a host of other large forest companies — an
estimated $138 million. But it cost provincial
taxpayers dearly.

Companies were able to grade set with im-
punity, in part because Victoria transferred the
responsibility for determining the tax paid for
Jogging on public land from public employees
to the logging companies themselves ~ a po-
licy shift that made as much sense as trying to
save money by firing the tax collectors.

_No wonder other provinces regard B.C. as a
softwood liability.

And a liability B.C. will remain until it does
the right thing and overhauls its antiquated

-stumpage and tenure system, a system that
provides too many benefits to corporate. share-
holders, but nowhere near the corresponding
‘return to workers or the environment as the
- continuing closure of sawmills and the loss of

. _, remaining. old-growth forest attests.

: The underlying problems with B.C.’s stump-
age system are nothing new,
. For: years, major corporations have turned
“high- grade logs from public lands into low
value commodities such as two by fours, parti-
_cleboard and chips.

~The reason Japan and others pay so much
more for our logs is that they do more with
* them. They tevere our wood. They optimize its
use. And in the process, they generate a lot
‘more jobs than we do.here.at home,

, We need.to lake .a page out of their, book; lad

We need to embrace value not volume as a
key to economic and environmental success.

"Po achieve. that, we must move toward a
.. model that-is truly market-based, where logs

- are publicly auctioned locally and sold at the

highest price.

‘This.model was used in Vernon, B.C. in a
pilot project run by the Ministry of Forests for
. the last seven years.
~ - The result? Victoria collected over two and
a half times more revenue by selling small
parcels of logs through open auction rather
‘than selling whole parcels of forest to individ-
ual companies.

‘An added benefit in Vernon was that much
_-Lof the logging associated with the yard was se-
“lection logging: This transiated into greater en-
‘vironmental protection in addition to more jabs
:per unit of wood logged.

-~ At the urging of major forest companies, the

The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, October 10, 2001 - AS

Softwood
strategizing

Three viewpoints on what's wrong in our woods

government never supported expanding that
model, a

‘Their gain is our loss,

Why are some companies so resistant to
competing for wood on the open market? .

Likely because they know that someone
making guitars or eabinetry will pay more for
high-grade logs than a company making Parti-
cleboard or dimensional lumber.

- Our value-added sector needs nurturing and
support.

To do that we need more logs available in
the local — not the global — marketplace.

Such a model would begin to address pro-
biems with our southern neighbors.

The imposition of duties by the U.S, will be

. very painful, not for government bureaucrats,

bul for the forest workers and communities
throughout B.C. who will pay the. price for
years of government inaction on this issue.

A simple way to solve this longstanding
dispute is to auction al least a portion of our
wood in fair and transparent markets with the
prices paid there setting stumpage rates. else-
where,

Big forest companies won't welcome such a

" move, but the vast majority of British Colum-

bians will because it-holds promise of deliver-
ing greater social, economic and ¢nviron-
mental benefits.

Why are some companies so
resistant to competing for wood
on the open market?

And who would argue with that, particularly
when we're talking about a resource that we,
the pecple, own?

It’s time the government did the right thing,
and remembered it’s the people, not the com-
panies that they work for.

Mitch Anderson is a staff scientist with the
Sierra Legal Defence Fuad and co-author of
Stumpage Sellout, the Fund's report chronicling
how BC forest companies avoid paying hun-
dreds of millions of dollars in stumpage fees,

Simplistic talk
ignores reality

By LES WATMOUGH

THE SIERRA Legal Defense Fund’s Mitch
Anderson writes at length about the softwood
lumber argument and repeatedly condemns
B.C. forestry and stumpage policies. Sierra
Legal Defense is financed by U.S. interests.
That is the first error commitied by Mr. Ander-
son, but not the last.

He writes of the forest service letting the
forest companies set their own grades for scal-
ing purposes, and that is partly true. Haif truths
make good negative points, but are very da-
maging,

The truth is that the forest service got out of
the scaling business (1984-1985) but main-
tained control by way of government check
scalers. All industry scalers had to be certified,

and were checked with regularity, and were at
risk of losing.their licenses if they were wrong.

The milling companies, for the most part,
contracted’ out most of their scaling to inde-
pendent scaling companies.

Where the story of ‘grade setting’ came
from is a.mystery. Logs are scaled and graded
as individual picces (grading can hardly be
done a truck load at a time) when they arrive
at the log yard.

Mr. Anderson is. guilty of using the rhetori¢
about auctioning off individual logs and mak-
ing furniture. Using rhetoric without research
puts many writers out into the field of lies.

The practicality of auctioning off logs as in-
dividuals simply does not exist,

In Switzerland, maybe, where the bulk of
logs are owned by small land owners.

But in B.C. logs
that are subject to
Stumpage (logs from
private lands seldom
pay stumpage, nor do
logs from U.S. private
lands.) prow on
Crown land, but are
logged by private
firms.

Who then would
conduct the auction,
the logger or the
Crown? And at what
point would the
slumpage be paid?

Furniture making
has long been touted
as (he way to get more employment out of a
unit of lumber (or trees),

That is a good idea, but everyone blames
the logging industry for not making furniture.
The duty of logging and milling is to convert
irees into lumber. Furniture manufacturers
make furniture,

If Mr. Anderson or the Sierra Club want to

Les Watmough

start making furniture, there are thousands of |

sawmills that would be very happy to custom
cut all the lumber they need.

Do not blame the forest industry for the lack
of furniture makers, look somewhere else for
the villain.

Mr. Anderson again relies on rhetoric when

he condémns sawmills for making chips‘ ard’

particle board. B.C. does not’ grow. oak or
maple, teak or ash, mahogany or rosewood,
the lumber that is used in high grade furniture.

We grow softwood, and softwood exports
are what this whele thing is about. Low grade
furniture, the most popular furniture on the
market today is made from, surprise, particle
board. I repeat, particle board, the very stuff he
vilifies mills for making.

The rhetoric makers and Mr. Anderson have
made enough mistakes as I have indicated, so
I will not go into the methodology of how B.C,
sets and determines stumpage rates.

[ will leave that to them, and I hope they
will do the research and become enlightened,
and then tell all their readers the truth, not the
half truth,

Les Wationgh is a Kitimat Stikine regional
district director and longtime observer of north-
west forestry.

We ought
to retaliate

By ABE BOURDON
IN THE PAST the U.S. has
*challenged Canada over its soft-
“wood exports (to the U.S.), and
‘three times Canada was exonera-
ted by the [International Trade Tri-
‘ bunal. -
~~ But each time Canada won a
round, Ottawa granted the U.S,
trade concessions, mostly at the
expense of British Columbia.
’ This is the main reason why
the U.S. feels that it can continu-
ally attack softwood lumber by
filing unjust countervailing duty
and anti-dumping actions against
Canada.
‘In 1999 just less than 29 trillion
board feet of suftwood jumber was
produced in Canada, about 11 tril-

LUMBER is the battlefield between Canada and ihe U.S. now ‘that the softwood lumber agree-
ment has expired and the U.S. has slapped a 19 per cent tariff on Canadian exports.

lion of which was produced in the

interior of B.C., compared to
about 3 billion board feet pro-
duced on the coast.

Sixty-eight per cent of all lum-
ber produced in B.C. {in 1999)
went to the U.S., compared with
24% to other parts of Canada and
8 % to Asia/Australia.

In 1999. the West Kootenay
producer Pope. and Talbot faun-
ched a lawsuit against Ottawa,
claiming it discriminated against
B.C. under the Canada-US soft-
wood lumber agreement.

Pope and Talbot were claiming
$30 million U.S. in damages under
a provision of the North American
free-trade deal that protects in-
vestors. who believe they have
been unfairly. hurt by government
policies.

The company said that it did
not dispute the agreement, which
imposed duties on Canadian lum-
ber shipments to the U.S. beyond
14.7 billion board feet a year. But
Pope and Talbot say Ottawa's dis-
tribution of the duty-free quota
among Ontario, Quebec, Alberta
and B.C. “has clearly hurt some
provinces and favoured oihers”
Note New Brunswick appears to
have been excluded from the
quota system.

In 2001 Timber-West filled a
statement of claim in federal
court calling on: Ottawa to repeal
a private-land log export restric-
tion that covers only B.C. Timber-
West, B.C.'s largest. private. forest
landowner, calls the federal .re-
strictions “discriminatory” . be-

cause it covers no other landow-
ners in Canada.

Timber-West feels that "B.C.’s
private landowners are entitled to
the same rights and freedoms as
all other Canadian landowners,
including First Nations.”

Also in 2001 the U.S. launched
a retroactive duty of 19.3% on all
softwood imported after the soft-
wood Lumber Agreement expired,
except lumber, from New Bruns-
wick — which once again appears
io be excluded, ;

Otlawa’s reaction aver a $3
milllon trade dispute involving
Quebec cheese producis was lo
retaliate, limiting importation. Ot-
tawa’s reaction to the 19.3% tariff
involving multibillions of dollars

appears to the U.S. appeasement

and more concessions that will
have to be borne by an already
hard hit industry.

Rather than be continually for-
ced into adhering to concessions
made by Ollawa, the citizens of
British Columbia should call upon
the provincial governmen? to im-
pose a reciprocal 19.3% duty on
hydro and natural gas (retroactive
to April, 2001) exported out of the
province, without depending upon
Ottawa.

Under the constitution, natural
resources such all lumber, natural
gas, oil and waler come under the
exclusive jurisdiction of the Pro-
vince, therefore the Legislature in
Victoria has the legal authority to
make such a levy,

~ Abe Bourdoia lives in Terrace.

CORRESPONDENCE FOR THE TERRACE STANDARD

The Mail Bag

Shock waves
Dear Sir:

On September 11, 2001 the universe changed and
this is best exemplified by a chapter in a book by

‘Stephen Leacock, Canada's greatest humorist.

Winnowed Wisdom is now available in the newly
released Prospero Books edition, A Treasury of
Stephen Leacock.

Writing in 1926, Leacock suggested that the “Next
War” will be opened, if not preceded, by the bombing
of New York from the air. The hotels, comparable and
luxurious above anything in Europe, will probably be
blown up on the first day.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art which, Leacock
said was equal to anything in the south of France,
would undoubtedly afford an admirable target for a
bomb and no air squadron could afford to neglect the
size and beauty of the Pennsylvania and the Grand
Central stations in blowing them up immediately.

Leacock was, of course, using exaggerated
examples in 1926 which in those days were so absurd
they were laughabie.

But, he said, New York's mercantile houses (like
the World Trade Center later built in the 1960s) ‘are
admirable and could undoubtedly be lifted into the air
at one bombing”.

Leacock, writing from the warmongers’ point of
view, said the new chemical terror would create
poisons whereby the crops of countries could be
poisoned in the ground a hundred miles away aud
livestock would be poisoned in the same manner.

As for the navy, the bigger the battleship the
bigger the pun. The navy was carrying guns 40 feet
long with an effective range of 25 miles —- but with a
gun 10 feet longer the navy could sland off New York
and knock down that bally city.

Mankind, moving forward with naval gunnery
every year, would be able to - from NYC harbour —
knock out Chicago, or take a smack at St. Louis or
Omaha - maybe even have a bang at Winnipeg.

So as you can see, one man’s absurdity is often
enough of a blow to send shock waves around the
warld in a reign of terror.

Brian Gregg, Terrace, B.C.

Heads are in the sand

Dear Sir:

I understand that the notion of arming pilots in
Canadian aircraft has been turned down by a majority
of peopte in and out of the airline industry.

This comes as no surprise to me given the attitude
that has been engendered in Canada regarding guns.
The frothing contro! freaks like Wendy Cukier who
brought us Bill C-68 in the wake of the Mark Lepine
rampage in Montreal would be loath to admit that a
gun is actually useful.

It goes without saying though that had pilots been
armed on Sept. 1£ we would not be dealing
with massive structures transformed into graveyards in
a matter of hours: and property and psychological

:; damage capable of. triggering a.- continental

depression or watse.

I believe that equipping pilots with access to guns
and the training to use them properly would
be prudent in light of what has happened.

The notion that a person responsible for hundreds
of lives would use a gun improperly, or that it could
not be safely stored, is ludicrous. Fish and game
officers, customs officers and many other people with
no job responsibility toward human life are entrusted
with guns and I have yet to hear of an incident

' regarding their misuse of weapons.

Nonetheless this will never happen here. Those
thal influence decisions, like the radical feminist

_ Sunera Thobani, who just finished a taxpayer-funded

Tant against the blaod soaked and imperialist evil
empire to the south of us, would never allow it,

The U.S., for all its foibles, is still our greatest ally
and trading partner and without them we would have
virtually no national defence capabilities. Their
decision to strongly consider arming pilots evidences

_ the depth of the schism in ideology between our two

countries. As Canadians we keep our heads buried in
the sand at aur continuing peril,
David Wiebe, Kitimat, B.C,

The Distant Drum
of Peace and Justice

To all American friends far and wide
You move me to sland up with strength & pride
close your eyes and listen clear
hear the distant drum coming near

The thunderous feeling from head to toe
Is the heritage of freedom rising up, it will never
go
When you open your eyes you will see
Our mother Earth will.be in harmony

All our different Faiths coming together
Showing our best to one ancther
You hear the drum of Peace & Justice echoing in
the bay
It’s the hearts of the people healing each day

When the sound of our drum skips a beat
A fallen angel, my patriot will sleep
so when you hear the sound of a drum of Peace &
Justice
Stop, look, & listen to what will be done

So the next time you can pass
Our heritage of Freedom with some class
When all the peaple of the world want to know
About the distant drum of Peace & Justice beating
fast or slow

Wayne Robinson Jr., Terrace, B.C.

About the Mail Bag

Thea Terrace Standard weleames letters. Our
address is 3210 Clinton St., Terrace, B.C, V8G
5R2. You can fax us at 250-638-8432 or e-mail
us at standard@kermade.net. No attachments,
piease. We need your name, address and
phone number for veritication, Our deadline is
noon Friday ar noon Thursday i it's. a long

_ weekend,