Thank you, Ben, for shedding some light on the facts about this. This issue is a sore spot for many people and it's easy to criticize and point the finger in the wrong direction, especially during times when we will be casting our votes.

Just curious what happens to the revenue from that exported wood from native land ?? Does that money go into a band's general revenue or is it money that goes into private pockets ??

Not trying to start anything... just wondering what the model is and how it functions.

Happy Earth Day to all !!

V.

One saw mill is still a lot of jobs lost, but perhaps it is a case of the straw that broke the camel's back.

The argument made here - and quite well so - is that NO government has control over what is being done with the wood that comes off native lands.

If it is beyond the control of ANY government nobody should knowingly try to make others believe that it is the fault of government that it is happening and that some other government would be able to ban raw log exports and thereby remedy the situation when it too won't be able to do anything about it.

And how fair would it be to tolerate the export of raw logs for some operators and disallow it for others who want to make a living too?

If it is causing a lot of job losses EVERYBODY should get together and tackle this issue together - voluntarily.

I may get jumped on for what I am about to say but here goes anyway....I believe that the natives should start paying taxes like the rest of us. It is long over due. I am part native myself and still believe this. The free ride must and should end. :}

A native band on Vancouver Island near Port Alberni constucted a sizeable, modern sawmill to mill wood from their "traditional territory". They soon found it was better to cut the "junk" wood in their mill, and export, as logs, the high-end raw material. They couldn't make a buck cutting the high-end here. That wood was too valuable to start with, and it's extremely hard to 'value-add' anything already quite valuable. All that ends up being added is 'costs' that can't be fully recovered in 'price'.

The mill burned down last year, but any reports I've seen indicate it was only a marginal venture at the best of times. Even running it the way they were, which was probably the best way to run it. I've no idea if they plan to rebuild, but it wouldn't surprise me if they didn't.

That there might be more profit for the band in just shipping high-end raw logs than in trying to process them here seems to be unquestionable.

Now that might not be so bad if the band members, as individuals, received as much income as 'individuals' for NOT working in the mill as they did FOR working in the mill. (If people think there's so much 'virtue' in 'hard work', that it's vitally necessary to build 'character', then why is it everyone makes a stampede to the ticket counter when the 6/49 jackpot increases into the double-digit millions?)

But getting an income that way is as unlikely to happen in their case, (and they "own" the exported wood "in common" ~ but somehow that doesn't relate to an income from its sale for the "individual"), as it is with every other instance of logs being diverted offshore and mills closing here.

I think there's a part of the whole "economic equation" we're missing here somewhere. And ALL our 'Parties' are too.

There are parts of the world which use heavy timber for construction to a much higher degree than North America does.

We use sticks for our construction, which I would assume the Port Alberni is refering to junk wood. As they say, it is a crime to cut up large logs for that purpose when there is greater value there when it is cut to 8 x 18 inch timbers.

In other words, if you can get the same or even more money for the log before processing, why would you want to build a mill, pay for jobs and end up with the same amount of money just distributed to more people, including some European country that sells you the milling equipment.

The main problem is how to distribute that money.

Thus back to the question posed by RRabbitt, who gets the money, XYZ First Nations Enterprises LTD owned by Jack and Jill, or the Band who can use the money to improve housing, develop other job opportunities, etc.

Actually, if you wanted to, there could be many ways to stop raw log exports. How about tripling docking fees for wood carrying ships? Slapping large fees on the trucking of logs? Install mandatory 6 month quarantine on export logs to make sure we are not exporting insects along with the wood? And this is all off the top of my head. I'm sure there are even more creative and effective ways to stop raw log exports. As always where there is a will, there is a way. The real problem is the present government has no balls.

Well said herbster. }

Yeah that'd be great... let's slap heavy export taxes on raw logs to the point where exporting becomes unprofitable. Then no one's logging, no one's trucking, no one's doing the silviculture work, etc etc. Way to shut down a company (or First Nations group in this case), herbster.

The First Nations should not be sending our resources out of the country. They should care about Canada and the forest workers like anyone else concidering that the forest workers taxes help to buy their houses and make it posible for them to not have to contribute tax wise.

Its called getting the best deal. Danny Williams (Conservative premier of NL) played hardball with Inco on Voiseys Bay and with Exxon on Hibernia. We need people who can negotiate a good deal for us and not just roll over and play dead. Even the Russians have banned raw log exports. There is a demand for our logs, and we choose to meet it with no value added. Keep eating the scraps from the table Swingline, and see where it gets you.

Thanks Ben for clarifying what I previously opined in an earlier comment. Being as I have no credentials myself when it comes to my one of thousands of opinions on any matter, it is still nice to see follow up. Keep up the good work.

Start looking at First Nations or Federal land as private land and all your worries will go away.

If I own 1,000 acres and I have 10 acres of harvest to sell every year, I can sell it to the highest bidder. I would be stupid not to. Why should I go to the expense of setting up a mill, when I have a consulting firm to run and I do not want to get into the milling business?

If someone across an international border will take that harvest off my hands at a rate of $300/1,000 board feet, why would I sell it to a local mill at $200/board feet?

Want to keep the log in the country? Give me the additional $100 and I'll do it. Otherwise, guess who is subsidizing forestry rather than other jobs? Me!

The extra $100 that I make will be spent on buying something which will means jobs somewhere.

In fact, it might be spent on intensive silviculture on the property so that I can rotate the trees faster, have better quality, low knot count, etc. to ensure that the increased value of the trees is sustained.

The key is that I will be the one who will decide how to spend the money, not the government.

Gus you are totally right-if you are american. Here in Canada the forest is owned by the people. What we do with it should be based on our best interest. And our best interest is not selling high value, old growth timber as logs. If someone wants to mill it, let them come here and set up a mill. And good luck in getting that extra $100 by the way. A smart foreign mill owner would pay you $201. And you would take it. Because it is an extra $1 dollar in your pocket, and to hell with your neighbours.

I questioned whether this "nation" of tree cutters are doing selective logging or just plain clear cutting. No matter , I guess. Just mind my own business. Right? Should be more interesting down the road when BC has about 51 overlapping "nations" cutting trees.

Just so you guys know. The current export legislation allows only 500 cubic meters per crown timber mark holer to be explorted. Only a minister (minister of forests or the premier) has the power to sign off on export permits. When it comes to first nation tenures there is a seperate set of rules. When you are selling wood from your private land you can also export to your hearts content because the timber doenst belong to the crown. Take some time to read the forest act its all in there. Cheers!

funny thing about the first nations resource issue.
They impede any incursion into their areas by resource harvestors citing evironmental concerns, yet turn around and do worse environmentally and sustainably.

The money all goes to the band office where each commmunnity leader gets a diminishing cut down the line until the regular members recieve little or nothing and are still living in squawler. They are just people with the same faults of greed and avarice that non-first nations folks have.

European settlers have done an outstanding job of teaching their ways to a congeured land.

Um, i am sure the natives were not the children some people portray them as when the white man first came around. From what i have read they had their share of greed, theft , slavery, war etc. I know white people like to blame everything on themselves, it is more than a little racist to suggest that natives are incapable of being just like us (without lessons).

I dont claim to know alot about the way the natives were treated in this country, but i do know that my great grandfather, grandfather and even my dad and I had nothing to do with it. I sit here and wonder, if they want the land and way of life back, why they drive white man trucks, and use white man tools. Turn your back on us, cut the power lines and take your life back, dont cry that you hate my way of life, and what MY people did to you while you sit with your hands out.

hypocrite - a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings.

One of the reasons for log exports in the case I previously mentioned, and many more like it, on the Coast at least, is 'logistics'.

No sawmill here can cut, and sort, and deliver on any kind of a timely basis the 1200 plus different sizes of lumber that are used in a traditional Japanese post and beam home.

We have a National building code with a limited and relatively small number of lumber dimensions that can be used universally in all building construction in Canada and the US. The Japanese do not.

The lumber sizes used there vary from region to region. The best we, and other lumber exporting countries can hope to do is to provide the most commonly used sizes, and get a share of the large, long timber market, (a very specialized industry in itself ~ and one of very uncertain returns, as one of the main Vancouver Island providers of such timbers (now in bankruptcy) has recently found out.

Those parts of the high-end log that would likely end up as low value pulp chips here, would be recovered for specific lumber sizes applicable to local uses in a Japanese sawmill.

That mill is close to its market. The logistics are working in its favour. Our mills, with the broad Pacific Ocean to cross to get the product to Japan first, before it can even be sent to wherever in that country it's needed, with language barriers, currency exchange rates, high cost demurrage for extended storage, and numerous other real or potential disadvantages, make it far more sensible to supply the "log" for many such cuttings rather than to try and cut it here.

Historically, lumber sales have always followed log exports. Wherever it's possible to ship 'lumber', it's far cheaper to do so than to ship 'logs'. If you go back in the history of the international timber trade, time after time "log exports" (to British sawmills from east coast America; from the Maritimes to New York and Boston sawmills; from Oregon to southern California mills, for instance), have been supplanted for the most part by "lumber exports".

If we were to ban all raw log exports completely we'd be putting ourselves at a great disadvantage. For if we can supply the same species in "logs", to cut abroad the sizes we can not practically cut here, we greatly aid our chances of cutting the sizes we can cut here from those same species in finding an export market in that same area.

Like anything to do with exporting, there should certainly be oversight and regulation where it is to OUR overall advantage. We do not want to depend solely on "market forces" being "free" on our side more than they are similarly "free" on the other side ~ and find this out after the fact, and to our disadvantage.

I guess as long as we don't run out of trees we are OK.