Hmmmmm.

Conifex just borrowed 30 million from canfor then invests it in an American mill and not in our province. .

Canfor owns about 7 or 8 mills in the Southern US.

The disturbing part of this,is that they used timber that belongs to British Columbians to leverage the money to buy a mill in the U.S. Normally the government would have to okay this, but if you give lawyers long enough they will figure out a way. They should lose their AAC for this!

Bottom line with this story is; it’s all about what is in the best interests of an International Corporation and not what is in the best interests of British Columbians. So where is Christy on this? Oh that’s right, she’s in bed with them.

Now how do you know that, Sophic? That part of the USA, where there’s still, (or was, before Canadian companies started buying them up), a large number of independent American lumber companies, was where most of the push was coming from to have punitive tariffs on Canadian softwood lumber entering the US. Now that push is going to be greatly reduced, and at a time when the SLA is up for renewal. In addition to that, having the ability to deliver different species into the market from one source, to better meet customer demands is of considerable benefit in being able to better compete for the available business. You should be happy that Canada has finally reached the point where businesses based here are able to buy profitable businesses in other countries, just like some of those countries’ businesses have been able to do here for years.

cougs79:-“The disturbing part of this,is that they used timber that belongs to British Columbians to leverage the money to buy a mill in the U.S. Normally the government would have to okay this, but if you give lawyers long enough they will figure out a way. They should lose their AAC for this!”
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Several problems. The government would have to okay the transfer of cutting rights IF they were transferred. But they haven’t been, and most likely won’t be unless Conifex defaults on its loan. If that were to happen, it would be a pretty good indication that no other similar sized operator would be profitable doing what Conifex has been trying to do either. And this is the thing that most often gets overlooked. Companies grow because their profits, taken as a percentage of their overall sales, are often declining. They have to keep getting bigger and sell way more to report any increase in the dollar amount of their profits at all. Without an increase in the dollar amount, they can’t access needed credit. This is a ‘macro-economic’ problem that affects ALL our industries. It leads to ever increasing corporate concentration, but that concentration is just a stop gap attempt to deal with it. One that won’t work, long term. We need to start to look at the ‘real’ problem, and forget about the popular but erroneous one of ‘corporate greed’.

Well socredible, we shouldn’t even be having a Soft Wood Lumber Agreement with the USA, our lumber should have been included in the North America Free Trade Agreement, then there would not have been punitive tariffs on our lumber crossing the border.

Hmmm… now who’s fault was that? Oh yeah, the Mulroney Conservatives, they sold our forest industry literally out of NAFTA.

Another factor is that tree’s grow much faster in the South than they do in Canada. Over time Canada will lose out to the Southern USA, South America, New Zealand, Australia, Malaysia, etc;

Huh, someone correct if I am wrong, but I thought wood is of higher quality in Canada because of the slower growth rate, smaller and denser tree rings making for harder denser wood than that warmer southern countries.

It is higher quality, Sophic. But different species have different applications. And it makes little sense to use what might soon be considered a ‘superior’ species, (and who would ever have imagined that, when it once was considered a worthless ‘weed’ one), BC lodgepole pine, in a use just as well suited to a cheaper, inferior one.

Sophic:-“Well socredible, we shouldn’t even be having a Soft Wood Lumber Agreement with the USA, our lumber should have been included in the North America Free Trade Agreement, then there would not have been punitive tariffs on our lumber crossing the border.”

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Then there would also be no restrictions on raw log exports crossing the border either, Sophic. Canadians didn’t want that, so the deal didn’t include softwood lumber.