Horgan Blasts Liberals Over Raw Log Exports
Prince George, B.C. – NDP Leader John Horgan says B.C.’s practice of exporting raw logs is killing jobs.
“Every time a log leaves B.C., that’s a job that leaves B.C.,” said Horgan during a news conference Thursday. “In fact, it’s many jobs that leave B.C.”
According to the party, B.C. raw log exports hit the second-highest monthly level in recorded history in November, with nearly three-quarters of a million cubic metres being shipped elsewhere for manufacturing.
In fact, since 2001, Horgan says 30,000 fewer people are working in the province’s forest industry something he notes is avoidable.
“Repeatedly the minister of forests disregards the advice of his expert panel and allows more logs to leave our province. I want to say that an NDP government will make sure that the surplus test is a real test, and that the only logs that leave B.C. are those that are not useful to communities right across B.C.”
He says the number one beneficiary of raw log exports are the companies that are accessing the province’s public lands.
“And interestingly enough those are also some of the biggest donors to the BC Liberal Party. So, certainly Christy Clark is benefitting rom the export of raw logs but communities are not.”
Comments
Always good for a laugh when the NDP chimes in on anything to do with the economy. How’s that whole Alberta thing working out for you guys? How did you take the most prosperous province in Canada and turn it into a financial disaster in such a short amount of time?
So funny.
isthisreallife, unfortunately your comment about the NDP turning BC into a “financial disaster” is simply not true!!!
PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT #2: BC’s credit rating remained stable throughout the 1990s under the NDP. In 1990, BC’s credit rating was AA a rating that remained in place right through to 1999 (ten consecutive years), when it dropped to AA- under circumstances beyond the provincial government’s control; namely the Asian Market collapse.
ht tp://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/reality-check-b-c-s-credit-rating-1.1400605
Didn’t remain steady and only drop because of circumstances beyond the governments control. It dropped because they had 8 deficit budgets in a row, that is something you now consider beyond their control? Standard and Poor’s and CBRS dropped the credit rating twice in 10 years DBRS and Moody’s dropped it once.
Looks a lot like Alberta, hey?
Dippers gotta hate, hate, hate
I tell you what is simply true! The BC NDP took the province from having #1 status in Canada to Have-Not status (qualifying for federal transfer payments) in ten years! The other provinces in Canada prospered during that decade!
You can repeat that story about the Asian Flu over and over, but it has no meat on the bones! Even with lipstick on its lips a pig is still a pig!
PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT #1: The BC Liberals claim that thousands of people left BC in the 1990s under the NDP government because there were no jobs is a Liberal fabrication, its fake made up news!
CBC’s Reality Check team started digging deeper into the stats, all the way back to 1991 — the year the NDP took office — they found people were flooding into B.C. from other provinces. The trend continued for most of the NDP years in power. In fact so many Canadians came to B.C. during the NDP years, it more than compensated for a drain that began in 1997. During the NDP decade from 1991 to 2001 B.C. had a net gain of 126,000 people.
According to Statistics Canada, that’s double number of people who moved to B.C. during the last decade of BC Liberal government. The figures show under the Liberals from 2001 to 2012, B.C. had a net gain of only 54,510 from other provinces.
ht tp://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/reality-check-who-s-leaving-b-c-1.1369211
Total twisting of the stats of course.
So many people came to BC from other provinces to collect welfare checks. So many in fact that 10 percent of the BC population was collecting social assistance which prompted Harcourt to proclaim a crackdown on welfare cheats, deadbeats and varmints as he put it.
You also missed the part where “according to Statistics Canada, from January 1998 to December 2001 the number of people who left B.C. for other provinces outnumbered Canadians moving to B.C. by about 50,000”. In english that means BC lost 50,000 people to other provinces in just 3 years. Wow things were really booming in those NDP years weren’t they?
Dippers gotta hate, hate, hate
slinky states; “So many people came to BC from other provinces to collect welfare checks. So many in fact that 10 percent of the BC population was collecting social assistance which prompted Harcourt to proclaim a crackdown on welfare cheats, deadbeats and varmints as he put it.”
State your sources please, if not, we can assume this is more Lieberal lies and propaganda.
Your Google broke there BH? All from the Vancouver Sun
“The year was 1995 and the then New Democratic Party government was trying to rein in a soaring tab for social assistance after just four years in office.
The key driver was a 50-per-cent jump in the welfare rolls, sparked in part by higher rates here and cuts elsewhere in Canada
With some 2,200 transients from other parts of the country being added to the rolls in B.C. every month, the New Democrats slapped on a requirement that claimants would need to live here for three months before they were eligible to collect.”
“Fraud was taking place in the welfare system,” as then premier Mike Harcourt recalled in his subsequent memoir. “Our booming economy had a double edge to it: It was attracting many people to B.C. who had little or no interest in seriously searching for work ” Two years into his term, with almost 10 per cent of the population claiming social assistance and double-digit increases in the budget, Harcourt intervened. He shuffled the minister in charge, capped rates and vowed (in words he would later regret) a crackdown on welfare “cheats, deadbeats and varmints.”
Dippers gotta hate welfare cheats, deadbeats and varmints… has a ring to it don’t it?
So Peeps, I’m all ears!
I see that the NDP are doing a bang up job with job creation, economic stimulus and massive deficit projections in Alberta! (Sarcasm)
I also see that federally, Justin and Co. are doing a bang up job with job creation, economic stimulus and massive, I repeat MASSIVER deficit projections! (Even more and greater sarcasm!)
so Peeps, I’m all ears…..what would the NDP do here in BC? What is their great platform for economic prosperity? How will they fund the promises that they will undoubtedly put forth, if and when they actually put forth an election platform? Who will put forth this amazing platform, if and when they actually find someone to put it forth for them?
A little over 3 months until our next provincial election and I don’t think that I’ve ever seen a more disorganized group as our provincial NDP!
The elections coming Peeps! What will the NDP do?
Slinky, 1995? 1995? Why that was only a few years before the NDP gifted a massively unaffordable contract to the BCTF!
That’s how the NDP fixes the economy! They claim to be in a period of restraint while having Adrian Dix play a major role in kissing the BCTF’s butt with what they claimed was a 0-0-2 contract. Unfortunately the real cost of Dix’s 0-0-2 BCTF contract amounted to an additional $1.3 billion (in 1990s dollars) for B.C. taxpayers, and it led to the now famous headline, “NDP math: 0+0+2=11!
The last thing that the taxpayers of BC need is the NDP with their 0+0=11 math skills!
So Alberta’s crash didn’t have anything to do with the price oil tanking?
You really are a willful idiot to ignore the fact that Alberta was already in dire economic straits even before the NDP was elected.
Another worthless and stupid comment. You so smart
What Horgan fails to realize (or just plain ignores since it doesn’t support hie argument) is that the majority of BC’s off shore customers will not pay for finished lumber from a BC mill, they can make the 2 by 4’s for a fraction of the cost.
We don’t have a monopoly on wood so any Trump style protectionist NDP policies would pretty much blow up in their faces.
this may be true but they will still need wood to build with. So ship it to them in the form of 2×4. When their supplies start to dwindle they will take our processed lumber.
Or, they’ll just buy it from someone else.
Thank you Mr. Horgan for taking a principled stand on raw log exports that are based on the “public good”. Right now we have situation where Timber Companies have been given far to much power in BC’s Forest Industry; “The B.C. government has given away so much power to timber companies that district forest managers no longer have the authority to stop suspect harvesting practices in the public good, a Forest Practices Board report reveals.”
vancouversun.com/forestry+watchdog+finds+timber+companies+have+much+power/11613128/story.html
Voting for this man and his party, will put government back in charge of overseeing and managing our forests, and that folks is a good thing!!!
Putting Horgan in charge of anything except cleaning the bathroom at Starbucks would be a disaster for the forest industry. Horgan and BH have no idea how the forest industry works. Even the great NDP leader Adrian “flip flop” Dix admitted that some raw log exports were a good thing. BH and Horgan should read up a little on the economy of logging, sawmills, forest industry, and value added and maybe then you would even have the slightest knowledge in you inflammatory statements.
I remember the last time the NDP were in power and they funneled millions of taxpayer dollars to prop up Skeena Cellulose. Sounds like Horgan and the NDP haven’t learned much since then.
That’s a small drop in the bucket compared to what BC Hydro overpays for power from IPPs. Over a Billion dollars last year to buy over priced power from run of river projects and then sell it cheap on the North American market.
A Billion dollars a year, to buy excess power. Think about that for a moment. A billion dollars.
That’s your BC Liberal’s at work for you…
can you provide proof they bought the power for more than they sold it for or is this more Horgan double speak?
What price do they pay for the power from an IPP? Do you even know that number? How much did they sell it for? Do you know that number?
If they bought a “billion” dollars worth of power where is your report of how much it sold for? I have no idea, as you can see I am not making any claims that I have no proof of.
Did you read this on the Tyee or something?
FY 2016, from BCH financial results
Average Price paid to IPP is $85.83 /MWh
Megawatts Purchased from IPP 14,319,000
Payments to IPP = $1,229,000,000
Price per MWh received for sale of excess power $31.22 /MWh
IPP power at market value $447,104,263
Difference $781,895,000
Under a billion dollars, but pretty close. Guess who’s paying that difference? Yup, residential customers.
BCH currently has in excess of $54B in contractual obligations to IPPs, all with inflation riders that are not tied to market conditions. So if the NA market goes down, BCH still pays more for the excess power and has to sell it at even more deflated prices.
So you correlate selling excess power to that coming from IPPs? Didn’t know they only produced surplus power and nothing goes to homes around BC
Do you even know what an RPF is BH?
I did plenty of job descriptions, determined salary, and arranged for orientation on the hire of newly hired Registered Professional Foresters.
RPF is not to be confused with RFP, do you know that an RFP is slinky? I have prepared many of them
I have prepared many RFPs in harvesting and silviculture, they are basically useless tools. The scoring system is usually developed by orangutans in the office who know nothing about the field. The Ministry only uses them to try and keep out those they don’t want doing the job. Price being 50% (usually) it is hard for two companies of equivalent size to win based on proposal over price.
You do know what RPFs do then, do you not? You do know that Ministry field staff are not RPFs right?
I also hold a scalers license in BC but hey didn’t know we were thumping chests.
One thing I do know slinky is that BC’s Forestry Watchdog; The Forest Practices Board, makes use of many RPFs and leading experts in the forest industry management and science. When the Forest Practices Board say; BC’s Forest Resources remain unknown and unmanaged, what does that say about this BC Liberal Government?
Funny – November 9, 2016 BC Timber sales passed an audit by the FPB. Guess they can’t be doing that bad in managing the forests
Here is what the mandate of the FPB is:
ht tp://www.adminlawbc.ca/tribunals/agriculture-environment-resources/forest-practices-board
750,000 m3 raw log exports in November? Better do some fact checking on that number.
At least the NDP is willing to put out figures when it comes to raw log exports, when it comes to knowing our province’s timber inventory, and how to manage it, our BC Liberal Government is literally clueless!
http://www.vancouversun.com/business/resource+development+remains+unknown+unmanaged+warns+Forest+Practices+Board/7993065/story.html
You really should read your links BH
The FPB is referring to the overlap between Ministries which even in the article it states the province is actually dealing with.
Dippers gotta hate, hate, hate
Question: Did the NDP stop raw log exports during the decade it was in power?
Answer: A resounding No!
The policy was surplus logs, logs that were not needed by mill locally. The Wood Markets publication argues that the end game of the US lumber Coalition and US government is to “curtail Canadian sawmills and reduce Canada’s share of U.S. consumption” and to “marginalize” the Canadian forest industry, its largest competitor. 250news.com/2016/12/13/softwood-lumber-trump-admin-to-further-squeeze-canadian-manufacturing/
Hahahahahahahahahaha holy smokes you just made my laugh of the day
The libs, gutted the Forest act to please forest company’s and 30,000 forest workers out of a job, Raw log export just the tip but its happening in the North west also. So like everything no question you can increase profit by shipping raw product or resources but workers, families and communities get the long term shaft .Don’t forget it was the Socreds that brought in the forest act to build communities and stable work force and the Libs just gutted it the results speak for themselves.
Completely agree! The Forest Practices Board has found BC resources to be “largely unknown and unmanaged”, how can a government fail the entire forest industry?
This just sounds like the provincial version of how the Feds allowed the railway industry to gut the Railway Safety Act.
Why not a statement on raw oil exports? Is it really any different?
I suppose you do not understand, how else do you ship oil. If you refine the oil into diesel or gas, by the time it gets to the buyer, it would have evaporated from all that jostling.
That is the reason why OIL is shipped raw.
Lots of jostling from the gulf refineries to Canada’s eastern provinces,eh!!?
? They ship fuel from the States to Canada in pipelines? These pipelines somehow more evaporation proof that ours?
I am pro business and a BC Liberal supporter. But I agree 100% about the argument of shipping raw logs. We should process the logs and sell only finished products.
Great idea, but if there is no market for our finished products, that’s a recipe for failure. As mentioned above, other countries can process our raw logs for a fraction of the price and BC does not have a monopoly on wood. If someone figured out how to sell finished product here, they would be doing it.
Mills are closing due to a lack of fibre supply, not due to a lack of markets for their products. Stop the exports = more fibre supply domestically.
“Pro Business” So if He Spoke wanted to sell logs off his/her’s private land and couldn’t find a buyer (say a local mill or processing facility) because either the timber profile doesn’t match the buyers specs or the buyer wont pay what you want. Now say there is an international buyer that wants to import the logs because the logs fit the importers specs and price..Would He Spoke then say no..? Or will he/she have to make the moral dilemma decision of “pro business” vs raw log export bans..
I used to be a log broker, timber scaler and cruiser..What I have outlined above is exactly what the issues are. Lots of exported timber is either from, private land, first nations land/tenures or the timber doesn’t fit the specs for local sawmills. I would love to see the NDP try storm and die on that hill in court trying to ban those exports! I will also add that most exports are coastal timber and most exports from the interior are either house logs or pole logs and only makes up around 2% of the total export volumes. I have been out of the business for a while however I do understand that more crown timber is being exported than previously..
You really think log exports caused a shortage of timber supply Fate? That would have to be your correlation to make your point even remotely valid. You think a log export in Prince Rupert is going to truck that raw log to Merrit to keep the mill open because the AAC dropped? If it was even remotely feasible you don’t think Tolko’s buyers would purchase the export log to keep the mill open?
New markets have to be opened up, Governments over the past 20 years have been trying to convince industry to be more aggressive in this area but they always fall back to US. As industry said many times we have some of the most productive and advanced, competitive Mills in the world. Export of our raw product just plain wrong short term gain for long term pain. You can never stop all Raw log export because of free trade agreements but you sure as hell can cut it back and get this product into our Mills. Exporting our raw product increases corporations profit but little else.
Use Trump tactics. Put a 35% export tariff on them.
Then we lose the harvesting and transportation as well as planting jobs.
Who’s going to buy the finished product if we mill it ourselves? I’ve never been unable to buy a 2 by 4 at the local stores so the supply seems to fit the demand. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to spend 10 bucks on a 2 by 4 just to keep a local mill running.
A good portion of the log exports are from FN communities harvesting from their treaty lands. Bet Horgan does not have the gonads to open that can of worms!
There are no sawmills in the area to process the logs. To build a mill complex. sawmill, kilns, planer, etc from the ground up would bear a pricetag somewhere in the $250 million dollar range. If there was a return to be made on that kind of investment one of the big boys would have stepped in.
Residuals from manufacturing, chip, white wood waste and hog fuel are important revenue streams for a mill. There is no place to close enough to send these items without transportation costs eating a significant portion of revenue.
Modern sawmills do not have a lot of workers to process logs into lumber so I wonder what the net job loss would be as there are jobs in the port to off load sort and reload the logs.
The shortage of fiber arguement does not hold water as the coastal log basket does not fit into the requirements for interior mills in terms of size and species.
The 30,000 jobs lost that Horgan speaks of are a result of reduced AAC because of the pine beetle not exports. One still has to wonder if the ndp government of the day had listened to the RPFs in the MOF and lit a prescribed burn to nip the infestation in the bud. Will never know but it is plain what happened when they sat on their hands and did nothing.
Funny your head is in the sand, the Pine infestation you talk about was unstoppable for those that were there. As with the last one which was even more devastating. If you go there to day as its in a dry belt its all growing back. Our issue and problems are to day and the past 16 years of this Governments total neglect of the forest and communities they changed the Forest Act which made matters even worse. Time to pay attention to the industry we have what’s left of it.
Were you actually there or anecdotal info? I was in the logging and cruising field for both infestations. I go back and look at areas we cleared in the 80s from the Narrow lakes to the Hagen and can’t believe the difference now. All those open fields of seedlings back then… At one spot on the Bowron FSR you could actually see the entire valley, one massive clearcut… They said it could be seen with the naked eye from space at the time but I didn’t get the opportunity to witness it.
When the pine beetle crossed the Alberta border the Alberta government listened to the advice of the forest ministry and felled and burned the infected trees right there in the park, something the NDP refused to do in BC.
It worked! Here we will never know if it had worked or not as the NDP did try it inspite of suggestions from the MOF!
Correction, typo, it should have said the NDP did NOT try it, of course! Everybody knows what happened! It is somewhat irritating to be confronted by the predictable endless politically motivated denials of reality.
What f’ing nonsense. I’ve been in Alberta and there is plenty of dead pine indicating that the Pine Beetle is alive and well in Alberta’s forest.
You want to be unemployed, want to loose your home, vote NDP. The fastest way to get there.
Faster or slower, more and more are still going to get there. The NDP won’t reverse it, neither will the BC Liberals.
Maybe Trump will, hey?
The first Pine infestation started in 1970, never stopped until the big Oct freeze in 1986.So mother nature put the brakes on it. As for socredible the Libs have all ready cost Forest workers 30,000 jobs and counting, take the NDP over these buffoons. Their not builders of our economy their destroyers and so far have done an excellent job of it while spending 170 million in ads promoting their crap.
One more damning indication on how badly this BC Liberal Government dropped the ball on forestry, is in job creation, plenty of low paying part-time job created in the lower mainland, zero up here in the rest of BC.
The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives said while B.C. might be leading the country in employment, its research found job creation is concentrated in the Lower Mainland and doesn’t extend to the North or rural communities. B.C.’s traditional economic engine — the northern resource sector — has come under tremendous strain because of falling international commodity prices. “We recognize that and one of the things if you look at the success of the jobs plan, we know it hasn’t been experienced evenly across the province,” explained Jobs Minister Shirley Bond on CBC’s The Early Edition.
Double speak Shirley; how can she call the jobs plan a success if it’s only working in the lower mainland? What about the other 90% of BC geographically speaking? Forestry, Mining, Gas are all busts… its time for a change!!!
ht tp://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/b-c-government-touts-job-growth-in-5-year-update-1.3948427
“its time for a change”
To what? The dippers can’t even get anyone to run under their banner. In desperation started a whisper campaign to try to convince Krause to throw his hat into the ring….to no avail.
Three months from election day and they have not yet set a date for the nomination meeting because they have no one to nominate. This in a riding that you called a bellweather the other day. Speaks volumes when a party can’t find viable candidates in the two highest profile riding in the northern 2/3 of the province.Shirley and Mike have the PG ridings locked up.Done and dusted!
In Quesnel they chose, by acclimation, a guy whose day job consists of stocking shelves. All the qualities one would look for to run the province(into the ground), Minister of Finance material this guy-he can make change for a twenty:P
May 10th Horgan will join Dix and James in the recycle bin of failed ndp leaders.
Wow!!! So my good sized comment presents some rather damning evidence about the crappy state of our forest industry, mining industry, and gas industry… and the only thing you can comment on is “it’s time for a change”. Please sparrow, pretend I did not mention that last part, and respond to the facts that I presented in the rest of my comment.
Kind of hard debating the facts, isn’t it?
Prices on commodities like metals are cyclical in nature and beyond the control of a provincial government. Mines will reopen when prices recover such as two more mines in Tumbler Ridge that are coming out of mothballs.
Natural gas plants are moving forward, Woodfiber close to construction and even Cullen applauding moving of PR plant to Ridley Island.
As for the forest sector as I stated earlier it is possible that if the dipper government had listened to the MOF RPFs and lit some prescribed burns the pine beetle disaster might have been prevented. But instead made a political decision that nature should be left to do whatever may be in a park.
Investments have been made in PG. brand new HD mechanic building at CNC and new retirement home are but two examples. The blackwater mine is progressing and new arial surveys show more areas around the central interior that show lots of potential for more mines.
So that leaves the time for change comment. The fact is how the heck can a party expect to run the province when they cannot even find a viable candidate for the two local ridings.
“Damning evidence” good one BH
Horgan says he wants to increase jobs in the south even more, some solution. He is about as full of anecdotal info as you are
Dippers gotta hate, hate, hate
State your sources slinky, show us evidence that backs up your statement. Just as we though, nothing but another BC Liberal supporter’s personal opinion and innuendo. Thanks for playing.
You don’t even read your own links BH?
The high cost of living is hampering the clean tech and high tech industries Horgan wants to prioritize on. Note he didn’t say low prices in the north are hampering the tech sectors…
Maybe you didn’t get his comment earlier in the month when he said we in the northern boonies didn’t have the same perspective that “us in the lower mainland have”
PrinceGeorge -Your post on Alberta fixing the beetle is pure BS. Have you ever been to Alberta? If not, if you ever get a chance take a look around at the forest and you might learn something.
I have been many times to Alberta, I have looked at the forests, I watched a documentary on the news which explained how Alberta dealt with the beetles when they crossed over in the park. What is your evidence?
PG
My evidence is the beetle problem in Alberta has not went away. What is all that dead pine doing still standing if it was burned?
You will never convince these people with anything resembling facts.
Oh Sparrow, your so right and confused you may turn left Lol
That seems to be the case Hahaha, the facts and evidence that we present to them, does not seem to matter, their right wing ideology transcends, and takes precedence, over reality!
In mental health terms, that would be the definition of delusional.
“delusional”
Remind me of your diagnosis of people who attempt to berate and bully by pinng names on them. Was it sociopaths? I’d look myself but it seems to have been deleted.
remember posting this:
“When people start hurling insults, you know their minds are closed and there’s no point in debating. And so you disengage yourself as quickly as possible from the situation.” ~ Judith Martin
“Horgan blasts Liberals over raw log exports”, trust sparrow to try and drag this debate down to a personal level. Again I must reiterate; the BC Forest Practices Board finds that “BC’s forest resources remains unknown and unmanaged”. This under a BC Liberal Government mandate of 16 years… unbelievable, and unacceptable!!!
Were BC’s forest resources ‘known’ and ‘managed’ when the NDP was in office? How could they ever really be ‘known’? Trees grow. And they die. From natural causes, fires, wind throw, bugs, just plain old age. By the time any inventory has been taken it’s already out of date.
Trees that have no marketable value right now may become valuable later on. Various species, including lodgepole pine, which used to be considered a ‘weed’ species, are now being processed and sold profitably.
Some other species, like coastal hemlock, have had periods in recent times when they were worth less than what they used to be ~ the markets they used to be sold into are now being filled by other species from other countries. Who would ever have thought some of the small sized second and third growth fir logs being peeled for veneer would ever be used for that purpose? yet they are, and the recovery is way higher than in sawing that same log into lumber.
Nice try peeps but it was you that brought it down to a personal level with your slur de jour….. delusional*
I just take a small amount of satisfaction pointing out your Hippocrisy© again.
I answered your “facts” point by point on earlier post and could not help but notice that you tip toed around not giving any response.
You have also yet to respond on the ndp’s utter failure in not having a candidate yet for either PG riding. It is not like the election was sprung on them. With fixed election dates they have known since 2013 that the next election would be on May 9 2017. Here we are three months from election day and they are just beginning the process and you think they could run the whole province in an effective manner.
I think a name change is in order New Democratic Partly cause from where I sit they are far from whole! A whole -debatable:D
*would advise against using deplorables as your next slur especially if they are in a basket but feel free to keep liar and sociopath in the regular rotation.
Exports are 90% from the coast
29.5% of the total volume from the coast is exported as raw logs
42% Federal jurisdiction which Horgan nor the BC Liberals cannot do a single thing about.
75% fir and hemlock
ht tp://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/farming-natural-resources-and-industry/forestry/log-exports/bc_log_export_permit_report_2011_2015.pdf
Notes Horgan should take:
Lack of fibre in the interior has nothing to do with raw log exports when less than 2% of northern and less than 1% of southern interior volume is sold as raw log.
Comments for this article are closed.