Impact of Logs Exports on BC
Log Exports issue: more than a letter to editor is needed
March 14, 2012Sent of behalf of Dave Lewis, Executive Director, TLA
It is a little tough to sit back and watch the NDP, USW, and Ben Parfitt get so much free air time in regards to log exports. There truly is a balanced approach to this issue. The bottom line is banning log exports kills jobs. They know this.
The TLA represent a diverse group of businesses in the harvesting sector (including mills). The NDP are ignoring the economic realities of the benefits of maintaining logs exports while still ensuring that the local mills are fully supplied.
It is worth the conversation, but the conversation has to be supported by the media offering diverse perspectives on the issue. I would like to see this begin to happen. B.C.'s forest sector, its businesses, and the communities it supports deserve to have this side of the issue represented.
Contact me for this balance. I have members and other forestry stakeholders ready to speak on this issue. Below is some commentary on the article published in the Times Colonist on March 9 and a link (http://www.tla.ca/news-policy) to some other perspectives on this issue as well as testimonials from some of our members (below).
Dave Lewis
Executive Director
Truck Loggers Associationx
dlewis@tla.ca
Log exports are boosting jobs in the B.C.’s forestry sector. It is time for some balance on this issue
TLA Response to Times Colonist Article:Raw-log exports are hurting B.C.’s economy, Ben Parfitt. March 9thWe have restricted the export of logs from B.C. for decades and it has done nothing to solve our basic problems. Ben Parfitt suggests that we can reduce overall logging rates tomorrow by placing an escalating tax on the export of logs. Domestic buyers can only afford to pay $60 for a log that costs $78 to harvest. Placing a tax on logs to be exported does absolutely nothing to make them more economically viable. If you could not afford to buy a house but an American could, would charging the American a higher tax make the cost of it any cheaper? Of course not, all it would do is discourage competition. A tax simply makes the seller desperate enough to sell at below cost - until they either stop selling or go broke.
He also states that we need to stop the rampant waste at industrial logging operations. “Waste” in a practical sense is fibre that no one will pay enough to justify its removal. Pulp mills pay $43 for logs that cost on average $78 to harvest. The higher value logs in the same stand subsidize the removal of the low value logs. As long as the average value of the stand is higher than $78 it all works out. Over time, there are fewer and fewer stands with higher value logs. When you prevent a company from getting a higher value for some of its logs (ie. log sales to foreign buyers) you restrict the amount of logs that they can remove at a loss. Reducing log exports will actually make it harder to remove pulp logs from the bush, reduce employment and do nothing to solve the real problem.
Lastly, investments would be welcome but without profits to justify them, few companies will make them. Legislating a financial loss simply encourages less investment. We have failed to harvest low value stands of timber on B.C.’s coast for years because it does not make economic sense to do so. When foreign buyers step forward and are prepared to pay enough to enable the harvest of uneconomic forests, we should embrace them – not vilify them. Enabling the harvest of low value timber stands by selling some of the logs from them to higher paying foreign buyers actually increases employment, increases the amount of timber that is available for domestic mills and enhances our abilities to conduct good forest management.
Log Exports: The Reality
There has been a longstanding debate about log exports and many people continue to insist that exporting logs means we are exporting B.C. jobs. This is simply not the case. Log exports have a key role in the development of B.C.’s economy, particularly on the coast, by supporting jobs and economic activity in the logging and transportation sectors.
“We can debate which logs we should export, what the export fees should be and what the process should be to export, but what we should not do is talk about banning log exports and making claims that we are exporting jobs,” says Dave Lewis, executive director of the Truck Loggers Association. “This past year (2011) the forest industry was running at full tilt – largely because of log exports. Now that exports have slowed because of the China economy we will see that the decrease of exports will have impact on employment as harvesting jobs would not be replaced by manufacturing jobs.
As Bob Matters of the United Steel Workers said at a recent forum, “Log exports that strategically support jobs is something we can support and is a good place to start.”
Our inability to harvest our Allowable Annual Cut (AAC) since 2005 has resulted in an elimination of more than 2,100 direct jobs in the timber harvesting sector each year. Even if log exports were banned, the timber that is currently being exported would not be redirected to a local mill. It would stay in the forest because local mills are not prepared to pay the cost to harvest it. This puts loggers, engineers, silviculture workers and forest managers out of work.
Of course the forestry sector should continue to diversify and, yes, timber should go to local mills first, but at a fair price. Finding the right balance is the key to the long-term success of B.C.’s forest harvesting and sawmilling sectors.
There has been a longstanding debate about log exports and many people continue to insist that exporting logs means we are exporting B.C. jobs. This is simply not the case. Log exports have a key role in the development of B.C.’s economy, particularly on the coast, by supporting jobs and economic activity in the logging and transportation sectors.
Visit the TLA publications section for our government submission on exports.
Click here to download the TLA log export submission (DOC format)
