Forestry Firms Burning Jobs - By Ben Parfitt, TheTyee, Canada
The document noted that such policies essentially forced companies to use 'uneconomic timber or logs.' The document stated that under proposed policy changes, companies would be 'free to make commercial decisions' about what logs they left behind. The rules were subsequently changed to today's 'take or pay' system, which essentially allows companies to leave behind many logs behind so long as they account for it and pay the requisite fees to the province.
Yet this policy change, along with others, did nothing to assuage the U.S. softwood lumber lobby. Under the Softwood Lumber Agreement, now winding its way through Parliamentary approval, B.C. forest companies face caps on access to the U.S. market. Once certain export or price thresholds are met, companies will be forced to pay export duties on products they ship south of the 49th parallel and that are covered by the agreement. Meanwhile, the public is left to watch as a growing numbers of logs are destroyed rather than being used in some way.