Too late! However better late than never i guess! I can also see the americans bitching about the $5.00 stumpage rate as well. Cheers!

Your right northman the $5 stumpage rate is both a screw job for the citizens of BC plus PROBABLY (I am not positive, but I cant imagine that its not) in violation of the softwood agreement. The main issue since the beginning is that the US pays for private timber while the BC government gave away (or at least nearly gave away) BC resources to big business. The stumpage system was reworked to more closely match what a private timber owner would reasonably expect for their timber. And now Campbell thinks we should undo that? Giving away the publics resources is not the answer. Increasing productivity and value is. I work in the forest industry and would clearly benefit from this, but giving away resources to big business that belong to the citizens of BC IS NOT THE ANSWER!

I believe that good interior timber is around $22 per M3 while beetle kill is around $5. Now giving the beetle kill away is reasonable, because that timber is worthless anyway and the government should be happy to be rid of it in exchange for reforestation.

PS Everything else looks good though;)

Point #4 concerns me. Question: Was the 4 storey limit introduced due to safety concerns? If safety isn't an issue then fine. But, we do need to ensure our building codes reflect good safety practices.

Forestry plan, how about a massive push on reforestation.

Take the wood licence away from absentee operators in Mackenzie. Tie local jobs to local trees.

Let out generational tree farming leases.

Somewhat interesting concepts, and perhaps there is a concern with the softwood agreement. Or is there? Should we at this point be concerned with this agreement? Who put us further into survival mode? There is no better time for Canada to act and start some enterprising common sense. We can't be dependent on our neighbour to be our saviour, in times of good or bad.

This will sound repetitive, but why was the log export issue not expressed?

Unfortunately, we have to give our resources to Big Business. Do you think the banks will venture some capital to some fly by nighters?

Point #4 is odd, who needs to add a few more storeys. Seems there is a decline in housing starts. I would hazard a guess that the old 4 storey limitation had to with snow loading and our proximity to an earthquake zone.

I see huge potential for abuse with the Commercial Forest Reserve. The plan with this is to exclude eco-tourism, farming, and other diversified business from using the land base. The process will be controlled and highly influenced by the multinationals that control our forest industry and designed to their benefit over the long term opportunities for the citizens of BC.

AIMHO

Stumpage in the interior is much lower. Grade 4, which would typically be beetle wood is 25c. You can actually search online and see what each mill is paying. Not sure if links are allowed here so search the revenue branch and you can get the info.

Stumpage plays a pretty small part of log costs, particularly in the interior.

I would guess, mill in PG, Quesnel etc are probably delivering a log around $42-$44 right now. Total stumpage is probably something like $2 or less.

Also I don't agree with your point HE SPEAKS about logs being processed in the community where they are taken. I think that creates inefficient mills. It's about $5 per metre to haul logs about 100KM's. That means a mill that is one hour closer to the wood saves about 10-15% in log costs. If they can't compete with a mill with that advantage, why would we prop them up?

Ha!! what did i tell ya..Americans bitching about the 5 dollar stumpage. Heres the link.

http://www.vancouversun.com/story_print.html?id=1178770&sponsor=

Campbell has proposed many things in regards to the forest industry over the last 4 or 5 years.
How many of them have actually done any good,if they have even been insituted at all?
He sounds much like a duck farting in shallow water.
In the end,the solutions will come from those who work in the industry,or used to.
That is where the solutions are,but nobody,including Campbell and Bell,ever bothers to ask.
Paying lip service to the issue and telling people what the government thinks they want to hear, just won't do it.
The corporate abuse of the forest industry has been happening for years with government sanction,(all governments) and a complete rebuild of the rules,guidelines,and licencing structure is long overdue.

All this artificial propping up just hurts the other mills.

There is too many mills producing too much lumber. The more that is done to prop up the weak mills the more money they all lose.

Yah sure it sucks to lose mills, but it would be way worse to lose an industry.