While this would certainly be good news for Mackenzie and Kitimat I do hope that they can find a Canadian buyer for these mills. There is too much foreign ownership in this country already.

How important is foreign ownership, specifically in this case?

I assume they will still be using Canadians to harvest the timber, replant logged areas, transport the timber to the mill, work in the mill, cut products which will be saleable to a market that will pay enough to keep the operations fluid. In addition, they will meet Canadian and BC regulations, pay stumpage, as well as taxes on profits, if any.

Remember, Canadians own companies in the USA and other parts of the world as well. This is not a one way process. This is not about taking over the country.

Is this to operate the mills here or to ship them over to China, which they have done with other mills.

That would be good news for Prince George let alone Mackenzie and Kitimat.

Since the Eurocan announcement the winter logging season in Prince George has gone flat, very, very flat.

Are we to assume that although Pope and Talbot, Mackenzie, and West Fraser Eurocan Kitimat, couldnt make any money on these pulp mills because of high costs, etc; that somehow a Private Chinese Company could.???? Wonder where they will find the savings???.

Also has anyone ever considered the fact that these mills are privately owned. The BC Government merely signed a MOU to look into the possibility of someone purchasing these mills.

Whether or not the mills will be sold, and who they will be sold to, is the business of the owners. Ie; Worthington Properties, and West Fraser, certainly not the BC Government.

Pat is flying on the seat of his pants.

In the case of the Worthington property in Mackenzie it is very much the BC governments concern. The BC taxpayer was and probably still is on the hook for costs for keeping the mill warmed up to prevent a chemical spill. To my mind Worthington Properties have lost the right to sell the old Pope&Talbot mill untill they pay the taxpayers of this province the costs assosated with preventing a chemical spill.

simple baloney

What just happened in Prince Rupert...again?... with the old Skeena mill?
I believe that was also a chinese company and that came to nothing....again.
I don't see how a chinese company can run the Kitimat mill and make it pay when the former owners couldn't.
For Kitmat's sake,I wish they could, but I just don't see it happening.

Pat Bell talks a good story,as always,but let's see some concrete results from the trade mission before we give him a medal.
Seems we have heard this all before.

"There is too much foreign ownership in this country already."

Foreign? How about foreign communists, interesting.

"Bell says the first memo of understating was signed Monday to examine the possibly of a sale of the Worthington Pulp Mill. "

Memo of understating?...oh, must be a typo...lol
***
"There is too much foreign ownership in this country already."

While I don't have a problem with foreign ownership, I do have a problem with the fact that there is no protection for our resource ownership and jobs. This, I believe is why there are so many upset with Pat Bell and the government. To change this, the people must demand legislative changes. Problem is, it may not be globally feasible to do so. I don't have time to look at the data perhaps someone else has this and would be kind enough to share it?
***

"I don't see how a chinese company can run the Kitimat mill and make it pay when the former owners couldn't."

Every company has their management strategy. Depending on what model they use in conjuction with their business strategy it may indeed be possible to make those mills profitable.

It matters little what Worthington owes to the BC Government. Until the title of the property actually changes hands, it is owned by Worthington, and they will decide who can or can not buy it. The Government can put a lien on the property and collect thier money once its sold, or somehow confiscate it legally, but thats about all they can do. This of course would entail court cases etc; which would drive away any buyer in the short term.

What better way to learn how to build, operate and maintain a mill, than to purchase one and reverse engineer it. That's almost certainly the most efficient and cheapest way to get "know how" in an industry that may be foreign to you. The fact that you could tap into an experienced workforce and all of the intellectual capital that comes along with it is a bonus.

Just my opinion, but it makes no sense to me whatsoever as to why Chinese investors would want to purchase these mills given Palopu's fairly logical statement regarding the fact that they weren't making money being managed by people who already knew the industry. What could new owners REALLY bring to the table to change that? Call me crazy, but I think their only interest in these mills would be to learn the industry in a "hands on" manner so that they could eventually compete with us on THEIR terms and costs in their own country.

Philisophically I have no real problem with foreign owners operating in Canada, since we see it all the time. In this case though, I'd be very cautious about giving the Chinese easy "inroads" into one of our primary industries. If this does eventually transpire, I sure hope that the Province has done their due dilligence in regards to what the potential future risks are . . .

Palopu, the licensees have a responsibility to cut the AAC they have agreed to. If there is any appreciable fall down on that, they could take back the license and sell it to someone else.

That someone else may make an offer on an existing plant or may build a new plant.

Are people here so distrusting that they think that a member of the government would actually go so far as to pursue a sale of a plant when the plant owners are against that?

Palopu, why don't you give the owners a call and ask them rather than putting that kind of idea into people's minds.

I recently suggested the BC government put the Kitimat mill on Craigslist in Fujon province in China. What do I know? If I had credentials I coulda been a contender. Instead I'm just another cynical observer. With a very bad case of sarcasm.

Gus. I didnt say the owners were against it. However Im sure they are quite capable of selling the mills if they wished to do so. Most of what Bell is talking about is Hogwash.

The Federal Government has been funding projects and working with the Chinese on using lumber in construction for years. Look up Canada Wood Export Program on the internet.

Sales of lumber to China has increased 632% since 2002. Sales to Korea have increased 204% since 2002. Selling lumber to China is nothing new.

China has a massive pulp and paper industry. They build a new massive pulp or paper mill almost every month. Major pulp and paper companies from all over the world are locating in China and building pulp or paper mills.

China has a major reforestation plantation program to plant trees to supply these mills, however they are still short of fibre, and therefore the paper mills import pulp from Canada, Malaysia, USA, Austrailia etc; to feed their paper machines. They also import logs to make lumber and woodchips for these mills.

If they were to buy the Kitimat or Mackenzie mills it would be for feedstock for their paper mills. The question is whether if would be cost effective.

One advantage for a Chinese Paper Co., owning the BC mills is that they could get the pulp at cost plus transportation. So if they didnt make a profit on the production of the pulp, but reduced the cost of producing paper, then they may be serious about buying the mills. I still think that the high costs associated with the production of pulp at these mills would be a deterrent.

I know a few people who worked in the pulp industry in Prince George who went to China and Malaysia to help set up pulp mills, and this was 10 to 15 years ago, and they are still building mills.

A City in China with a population of 5 Million is considered to be a small city.

Canadians have a little difficulty in understanding the ways of the world. China is far ahead of us on many levels, not the least of which is education.

Everything you buy in Wal Mart and many other stores is produced in China and shipped to North America. We can no longer compete with them on many levels.

We have nothing that the Chinese want technologie wise. All they want is our natural resources.

Good Lord NMG!!!!! Forestry processes are hardly worthy of great trade secrets. Each province and each country has its own approach of how to manage a stand and how to use the fibre in a stand for the best economic use of the fibre.

Where has everyone been? It is no secret that we are not exactly the best in the world to get the most from a cubic metre of fibre. We have been primarily slaves to a single market. That market has gone tits up. On top of that, to protect their own industry, illegal tariffs have been imposed on us.

The Chinese, the Finns, the Swedes, the Americans, the Russians all have their own way of utilizing their fibres in the best possible way they think they can.

Harvesting, transporting, regenerating the forest each are done differently in those countries and each has different results. They also each use the fibre for different end products.

Who knows what the Chinese want to use the plants for. It would make sense that they would keep producing the same products if they are going to be building using the stick frame "technology".

Dismantling the plants? Those plants use machinery built in countries other than Canada. The optimizer control technology and the saws are not manufactured in this country. These plants are not made with our machinery. They are designed by us to have a large put through at the expense of jobs. Automation is the key. The machinery to give us that automation comes mainly from Europe. The Chinese are fully capable of building their own plants to suit their own needs. They are not exactly stupid people. They are, however, a nation which is going through a transition which has taken the western world more than a century and they are doing it faster than any nation before them.

Here is a report on a tour of Finish Sawmills just over 2 years ago. Well worth the read to put the local mills into a bit of a perspective.
http://www.woodproductsonlineexpo.com/slinkimages/72/cwp_07_07_finish_mill.pdf

Here are a series of reports from the National Post in January of 2009-11-12. They shed a bit of a different light on the topic than the local papers have done. Well worth a read.
http://www.nationalpost.com/m/story.html?id=1155758

Single face for China bound exports:
http://www.nationalpost.com/m/story.html?id=1155724
“Mr. Bell is calling for the major companies in his province - Canfor Corp., West Fraser Timber Co. Ltd., Tolko Ltd., International Forest Products Ltd. and Western Forest Products Inc. - to shelve their differences and work together in China. The idea is to "send a single face, don't argue with each other. Deal with that in B.C."

A Canadian company doing business in Japan using THEIR system of forestry
http://www.nationalpost.com/m/story.html?id=1155773
"I think the train has left. The Canadian industry no longer has the credibility with investors to have the capital to become a player any more, whether it's in China or Vietnam," said Mr. Fung, the Vancouver entrepreneur. "By choosing to stay home, we lost the market."

That's not to say he thinks all hope is lost. There is still an open window in Russia. And the value of the forests will increasingly be in the intellectual capital surrounding them. And Canada has piles of know-how. For example, Canadian research is developing ways to make pulp mills into bio-refineries. Putting that into practice will take a willingness to change minds: Trees can no longer be viewed as a commodity, but must be viewed as raw material for the creation of sophisticated products the way plastic is the raw material for a BlackBerry. That kind of thinking could easily be translated around the world.”

The people in Kitimat don't care who owns and runs the pulpmill there. It used to be owned by a Finnish government owned company, if memory serves me right.

Alcan/Rio Tinto is also not a Canadian owned company. Very few companies in Canada are outright Canadian owned. Tim Hortons has been American owned for a decade or more and I used to laugh my head off when Canadians would wave the flag and declare that Tim Hortons is the quintessential example of Canadiana!

Why, they even built a Timmys in Kandahar or Kabul to make the Canadian troops feel at home! Well, the American owned company didn't mind, it was good for business!

Anyways, I am glad that Mr. Bell is taking his role as a facilitator very seriously as Kitimat and Mackenzie could certainly use some good news for a change!

Thanks, Pat!

We today live in a global marketplace. If several Chinese companies are interested in buying two recently closed pulp mills ion Northern B.C. that is good news. I too am glad that Pat Bell is taking some action on this file.

If these mills do become sold and are actually operating a year from now try convincing a shop or restaurant owner in down town Mckenzie or the city of Kitimat that this sale really was not a good idea. I believe these bussiness owners would be quite comfortable with Chinese ownership thank you very much. After all, most us support the Chinese economy on a daily basis by our purchases of all the goods and products manufactured there.

More smoke and mirrors.These are old inefficient mills that nobody wants.It`s very unfortunate for the workers and the towns.

More smoke and mirrors.These are old inefficient mills that nobody wants.It`s very unfortunate for the workers and the towns.

Who knows why a Chinese group would be interested in buying these mills (if they even are). If they are I can only assume it's for some reason other than to operate stand alone pulp and paper mills in Mackenzie and Kitimat. Why would they waste their time and money on that when others couldn't succeed?

It's not exactly uncommon in the business world to make acquisitions as a means to an end and not as an end in itself. Perhaps there is technology in the mills they want. Perhaps they want control over some BC mills so that they can try and gain access to the BC resources in a more direct manner. Perhaps the mills would integrate well with existing operations that they have elsewhere. Like I said, who knows. I do severely doubt, however, that there isn't an angle to this besides simply making pulp and paper. That, to me, is the more interesting part to this story.

"While this would certainly be good news for Mackenzie and Kitimat I do hope that they can find a Canadian buyer for these mills."

It was just shut down by a Canadian company. They had their chance.

China is the second largest produder of paper after the USA and is expected to take over the lead within the next decade.

Although the mills are fueled mainly by waste paper products, the new mills are fueled in part by imported wood pulp. In fact, they are the world leader in purchasing wood pulp. I would think that is the connection.

They still need pulp sources to continue their expansion. They are just looking, not buying yet. Kicking the tires like any prudent pusiness person.

Read the attached. Plenty of reasons why dismantling a mill and shipping it to China is a joke. They want access to the feedstock = pulp. If they need to buy a plant to do that, so be it. Part of doing business.

If your primary business is making teak furniture, and your feedstock, teak, is not available due to poor management of the teak sawmills, then you might consider purchasing and operating a teak sawmill which will keep your main operation going.

http://www.forestprod.org/internationaltrade06flynn.pdf

The so-called 'emerging neo-colonial economic powers' (ENEP) are seizing control of vast tracts of resource rich titles and lands across Africa, Latin America and Asia... and we are to expect they don't have the same designs on our resources?

Across Africa farmers are being displaced by bankruptcy from debt and lack of affordable credit. A massive foreign surplus in American dollars of easy free money at low interest rates can be reinvested at predatory rates in the third world to displace the legality to resources and land. The repressed people are criminalized and their families are driven into disease ridden urban slums. This is the ENEP new business model for their 'private' state propped up industry captains.

In previous European imperial expansion it was driven with the forced labor of slaves, indentured servants, semi-serfs, tenant farmers, migrant seasonal workers, and all other forms of human depravities for the economic gain of an elite of colonial settler, home country investors, and imperial state treasuries. This was mostly done through the force of arms and the legal frame work of the ruling class.

Canada fought successfully to free the world of this kind of sins against humanity and a society’s sovereignty... and we as a nation respected the sacrifices made from previous generations for the causes of freedom and democracy only a few dozen hours ago.

Today in most of the third world they are under a new wave of imperialism and this imperialism is gaining a momentum that is a threat to all free enterprise economies the world over that do not recognize the problem and take measures to protect their own economies from local vulnerabilities.

Most of the capital in the new China and the new ENEP's came from expropriated land and capital/equity at the times of their national revolutions, or subsequent use of national powers to extort profits for the in crowd. Pirate capital all of it for the most part. Whether it’s in Madagascar's tropical forests being completely removed for a single crop of palm oil, or the Alberta oil sands, or our salmon routes, or the BC forests... foreign ownership is reckless with little to no care for local issues unless compelled by the force of law to stop any harmful practices.

The sovereign wealth funds of the newly rich oil kingdoms of the gulf, or the emerging imperial powers of China, South Korea, Japan, and India, or the multinationals themselves are all in it for a national strategy and will use perversions of free markets to gain a inside advantage or they won't invest at all. They invest in the US dollar for the benefit of the Wall Street bankers, so as to profit from the carry-trade benefits of a fractional profit on interest rates re-lending into their own economies or others around the globe through national stimulus in a lot of cases, but they are not doing the Americans a favor and when this unwinds so does the American economy. The Wall Street types like Godlman Sachs will make record profits as we have seen.

The saboteurs of our civilization reside on Wall Street and they see in dollar signs everything to do with policy, and their policy is global now and owes no allegiance to any one country, but rather the profits of corporate multinationals that are their new eagle banner they fly under... a banner that has no loyalties to external stakeholders from the core in finance and has no check to balance their greed by the governments of the world including the Canadian government... rules for these people are so that those who don't have to follow the rules can profit from it. The likes of Robert Rubin, or Henry Paulson make hundreds of millions rotating through the big banks and government making the rules they will profit from, but with little care to the actual economy. Canada has these same influences with just as devastating effect to the little guy and the small business entrepreneur.

Can there be any doubt when all of our industry is owned by foreigners and foreign governments that our democracy is not also in danger from the economic forces that drive their policy. Their foreign ownership policy is to maximize profits on our backs... can there be any doubt this is not the liberal policy already in regards to the BC forest industry?

The first step for these economic predators is to get the neo-colonial collaborator regimes to make 'free market' policy the rule of the day to facilitate the take over of vast tracts of resource rich lands by foreign entities. Pat Bell got elected espousing removal of all regulations in finance and forestry… that was his call to arms. They pervert the meaning of a free enterprise domestic market with a free for all for foreign ownership and financial robbery. The gifts and the generosity of charity in this process is merely a tool to grease the political road ahead until ownership is complete.

Except for the cronies of the neo-colonial rulers, almost all the high paid directors, executive staff, managers, technical staff and high skilled labor of the post industrial communities comes from or is subsidized to the home country of the foreign ownership at the expense of the host country… a foreign ownership brain drain of higher end employment in the local economy. An army of third country nationals soon occupies all the middle class jobs they can fill, if they are not already eliminated and then moved off shore altogether. Trade unions are made example of in the name of economic viability.

This is the World Bank policy. Promoting neo-imperial land grabs allocating $1.4 Billion last year to finance foreign takeovers of 'underutilized lands and assets' on the condition that local sovereignty surrender certain national policies meant to protect local economies. The World Bank creates more victims every day than any other organization on Earth and they do that with our tax dollars in the name of globalization. The World Bank plan is to monopolize infrastructure, credit, and the entire essential enablers of local profit... it is communism and fascism as one in their end goal once mission accomplished. They have no effective opposition and their policy is global policy now. In the future people will be loyal to their patron multinational and not to their neighbors and family is the civilization we are funding on the WB behalf.

For globalists, the viability of a sustainable economy that respects the livelihood of its workers and contractors/suppliers is of little concern to the bottom line dollar... they can keep production off until the 'market' improves holding those effect essentially hostage. A free enterprise system of local ownership however has sustainability in numbers, and healthy competition, which drives future value added innovation.

Time is running out for the ponzi scheme of easy deals and transfers of ownership and long term leases consummated by the local neo-colonial collaborators and overseas 'private' investors, or 'sovereign wealth funds'. The current world geo-politics are unsustainable in a world of true democracy and rule of law… and so something will have to give and every bit more that we as a people give to these thieves, then ever closer we bring those that will inherit the world from our generation another step closer to economic slavery... a slavery worse than the ownership slavery of the 19th century, because no more will our economic overlords have any responsibility for the social impacts of their decisions. Co-ops and community stakeholder ownership are options that would never be considered from a political standpoint of the ruling elite.

Its a recipe for future wars in some parts of the world already, and yet we are still allowing our governments to look for more deals that would sell us down that same river. This is the pattern these Chinese investments in our local pulp mills fall into IMO.

Everyone wants to save the jobs, but Canadians don't want to invest… and our industrial productivity, while competitive on an output capacity, they are failing financially... and this is the question people should be asking why that is… if we want to have sustainable solutions, rather than Pat Bells travel itinerary.

AIMHO

Seems to me the Chinese Paper Corp purchased the Prince Rupert Mill but never got it started. What they did do was turn the TFL over to the Natives around Kitwanga, and Carnaby, and they now purchase the logs for export.


So any purchase of these mills might be for the raw fibre.

"Everyone wants to save the jobs, but Canadians don't want to invest" .... in what???? So called Ponzi schemes? Imperialistic expansions?

What's to invest in that you are not against eagleone? You provide too many reasons NOT to invest. I cannot find a single hint on what to INVEST IN!!!!

Local co-ops? Sounds very communist to me! I am sure that you can uncover some sort of conspiracy that local co-ops are associated with.

The Eurocan mill and Mckenzie mill is of the same vintage as the majority of other mills in North central B.C. The mills in both PG and quesnel have had more upgrades over the last few years. However a new buyer could just as easily make some upgrades in these mills if they so desired.

In the residential market place savy buyers are always buying properties and retooling them and giving them a new lease on life.In fact one of the marks of successful effective bussiness people is that they see oportuntities when others see problems.The Chinese have a huge mareket and are becoming some of the most succesful bussiness people in the world. If they want to invest in Northern B.C. we need to welcome them.

We could chip the logs here and send the chips over to their paper mills. If chips is all we can use the logs for, then we are not very good at marketing our potential, are we? Don't blame the Chinese. And don't blame the government for trying to get industry to start marketing a bit better. That is what the trips to China are all about - MARKETING OUR WARES!

Other countries (as in their governments) are vastly superior at that than we are.

Countries like Germany are out there working their asses off helping their industries that produce exports to remain competitive in the world marketplace. Not only that, but they have incentives for advanced industries to locate in their country to put people to work and to give them the products the country wants access to.

Palopu: "Seems to me the Chinese Paper Corp purchased the Prince Rupert Mill but never got it started. What they did do was turn the TFL over to the Natives around Kitwanga, and Carnaby, and they now purchase the logs for export."

Why would Natives sell raw logs when at the same time their unemployment and suicide rates are quadruple that of the general population?

Why export jobs and the benefits that come with jobs?

Hard to believe, but not unbelievable.

"Why would Natives sell raw logs when at the same time their unemployment and suicide rates are quadruple that of the general population?"

-No offense to anyone but how many successful native run sawmills do you see out there? I can think of at least 6 that are mothballed even when the lumber market was good due to poor management and unrealistic expectations. Its a lot easier to manage just a forest license and sell the wood then sit back and collect the $$. On the other hand to be fair the forest license might not have the volume to support a milling operation so export might be the only option.

There won't be a sale unless the BC Gov't is going to pay someone to take these mills and even then any chinese buyer is only interested in the mills for scrap or the fibre connected to that mill if any. Why would they operate a mill here when the labor costs are so high. Its cheaper to bring the logs or chips to them in china and save labor. Shipping is almost free because the ships are allready going back to china almost empty. Mr Bell is grandstanding and looking for a reason to go to china on these "trade missions" if didn't come back with any memos or aggrements the press would be all over him.Sorry to all those small towns with one industry its time to wake up and start thinking of other ways to make a living beacause it isn't going to be in the pulp industry.

just a question:
When a mill is sold, does the timber license go with it?
If that is correct, the Chinese connection here is just an attempt to secure some BC timber rights. The mills would continue to be idled and the timber shipped whole to china using the deep Channel port in kitimat.

Cuts out the middle man for them.
the equipment in those mills is hardly worth scrap salvage.

Could it be that obvious?

"The mills would continue to be idled and the timber shipped whole to china."

There are regulations that would have to be met, primarily about the quality of the logs shipped, as well as tariffs.

If the logs are millable, then they will likely not be exportable prior to sawing them for at least lumber.

Gus, you don't get it if you think that entire trip was for marketing BC Forest products. The heading to the above article says Pat Bell was talking about a potential sale of BC forest company assets to Chinese buyers. I do find it strange that you would try and deflect the real issue?

I am all for business... good clean, legal, fair, equitable, win/win business that is not about getting ahead through bringing others down or facilitating corruption on the honest people of the middle class... who just want to work, invest, and get an honest return on their investments to live a reasonable life with a secure investment… paying their share of taxes, but not the banks and corporations share as well. What would be your problem with that Gus? I'd really like to know, because then we could have a real debate.

The plain fact of the matter is it all comes down to who the secured creditors are in the Mackenzie (Worthington) operation that debt financed that acquisition, and what deals they are making. With Eurocan the province has no say in the matter... Eurocan is a private business and could very well be mothballed for market support reasons where the government has no role to play legally. Obviously the Chinese signed some sort of interest in investment, so someone is talking a deal with them, and the BC Forest Minister is facilitating the deal as per his numerous announcements on the subject.

My question includes:

What would the degrees of separation be between say the Mackenzie secured creditors and the rest of the BC forest industry, as well as any potential foreign investor that they would be negotiating with for a take over of the operations?

What are the potential trade offs the secured creditors are negotiating right now in negotiating our community’s futures via the potential sale of forestry operations that are at the core of a viable forest manufacturing industry in BC?

Does anyone doubt Goldman Sachs or Chase Manhattan don't make global deals sacrificing real assets that support real communities in exchange for completely unrelated tradeoffs in other areas of their global financial operations?

In the global scheme of things and the Wall Street bankers that make the decisions on what will happen with these assets in a small town mill can become a loss leader gift at pennies on the dollar for the 'right player' through bankruptcy or related company 'take over' vehicles for a secured creditor.

For me, Eagleone, I see a system that is thoroughly corrupt. It is corrupt from the US Federal Reserve, to Wall Street, to Bay Street, to the average ponzi scheme, to the rip off stock pump and dumps, to the market distorting computer trading the banks are allowed to engage in, to the break down in all regulations around the protection of peoples pensions and investments, to the free tax and liability ride on behalf of government for international market distorting banking operations... thoroughly corrupt and no hope in sight that those facts will change anytime soon... our political parties have become them… its business as usually until the entire financial back bone of the western middle class is completely destroyed. It doesn't have to be this way, but how can we change things if nobody is willing to open their eyes to the level of audacious crimes those in power are willing to inflict on others when they know they are not accountable for their crimes. We don’t have the investigative media or the political organization to challenge the financial powers anymore.

95% of the problem people don't even realize they are the problem, because they are so rationalized in justifying what they advocate... that they can't see past ideology. One has to look no further than our Canadian Defense Minister Peter McKay's comments yesterday rationalizing how the recent Afghan election debacle was actually a success for Canada... a prime example of a government official telling us a lie, that they know is a lie and know that we all know its a lie (doublespeak), because the lie helps us feel better about an issue they would not want us to really think about... thereby saying the average person outside of government is an idiot, so lets tell them a lie that will make things look good ‘officially’… when in reality we should be analyzing the problem with a clear understanding of what the actual problem is in the first place. As long as we have government liars that tell small lies that grow to big lies all to fit with political policy, then we are not a fully functioning democracy anymore and we are not working towards win/win solutions that take into account the facts of reality for informed voters to make informed choices in the politics that drive the policies that will effect their lives.

Time Will Tell

IMO there is no justifiable reason why BC's forest industry could be majority owned by BC investors... other than the polticis of vested interests that run our political parties.

Any investors that can compete with Canfor and West Fraser are welcome to me. Their roots are in your wallets not in your community.

"Gus, you don't get it if you think that entire trip was for marketing BC Forest products"

If they were not marketing BC forest products, what were they marketing?

Certainly not Ontario built cars or Quebec built rapid transit systems or dulse from PEI.

Eagleone: "One has to look no further than our Canadian Defense Minister Peter McKay's comments yesterday rationalizing how the recent Afghan election debacle was actually a success for Canada... a prime example of a government official telling us a lie, that they know is a lie and know that we all know its a lie (doublespeak), because the lie helps us feel better about an issue they would not want us to really think about..."

Extremely well said! I was not surprised, though, by MacKay's ramblings. Peter, better to be just thought of as an idiot than opening your mouth and removing all doubt.

Eagleone wrote:
"With Eurocan the province has no say in the matter... "

I believe they do if the forest licenses are included.
----------------------------------------
"Eurocan is a private business and could very well be mothballed for market support reasons where the government has no role to play legally."

I believe they do with respect to the forest license which supports the mill's operations.
------------------------------------
"Obviously the Chinese signed some sort of interest in investment, so someone is talking a deal with them, and the BC Forest Minister is facilitating the deal as per his numerous announcements on the subject."

I would suggest that West Fraser, the mill owners as well as licensee holders, are talking the deal. As you say, it is their mill and it is their licernse ot mess up. I would think that is why the Minsitry is involved. A forest license has to parties to it, the licensee and the owner of the forests that is willing to provide a license with conditions. That would make it the MoF.
---------------------------------
http://foresttalk.com/index.php

from the above link:

"An unnamed Chinese company is already interested in the mill. WWEST FRASER HAS AGREED TO OPEN THE MILL'S BOOKS AND FIGURES for the Chinese company to study.

The company is the same Chinese company that has been interested in the former Worthington Mackenzie mill.

If the Eurocan mill is sold, the deal may not include West Fraser's forests licences. Forests Minister Pat Bell said there's 4.1 million cubic metres a year of fibre in the area that can be cut and that while most of it is held by companies, there's not a lot of logging going on.
----------------------
Do you have any inside information, eagleone, that would tell you that the Minister is the one who initiated discussions with West Fraser to look for a buyer or whether it was West Fraser who asked the Minister for assistance, or whether it just came up in a discussion and both hit on the same idea during it?

Why would you even think that this is happening unilaterally?

Anything to do with Afghanistan by the Canadian and USA governments and the governments of any other country that is in there is spin. Some of it is well done, some is not. But it is all spin.

Here is part of the spin from the Australian PM.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/12/2740395.htm?section=justin

They are all backing up the election. What other choice do they have? This is politics. The countries that are in there made a mistake.

At least we may be out of there in a year and a bit and after a few hundred more deaths. I could say "useless" deaths. But the politically correct spin on that is that they are all worthwhile because they died to defend the free world.

Here are Obama's words after the election.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/08/21/obama_remarks_on_the_afghanistan_election_97992.html

The foreign countries who are in Afghanistan to try to do what the Russians were unable to do are all spinning the same story.

Remember, the Americans were in VietNam to try to do what the French were unable to do. They failed miserably there as well.

The world failed in Korea, in Vietnam, in Yugolavia, twice in Iraq, in Afghanistan, ... and then there is that other big failure - Palestine.

Compare that to the success in Germany and Japan. The try to figure look at what has made those two countries successes and what it would take to have similar successes in those which have been failures.

The dynamics are just not the same.

Something we agree on.. the dynamics are not the same. Germany and Japan had highly centralized governments prior to occupation and the path to an ownership type of sovereignty was clear with an equally clear external enemy that they had to fear and worry about... For the Afghan in a hut looking at institutionalized corruption from a central authority in a decentralized society… with a future of fear from the enemy within... they will always be a backwards society?

IMO you talk to the Taliban… in a way that avoids the hard core you know will never recognize peace… but build a secret conspiracy with friendlies, with a common dream for the Afghan future, and use these frendlies to turn the table on the hard cores in one big defining event... and once you have them all on the run and the mind set has a chance to reset to one of law and order under an Afghan sovereign to the people form of government... hopefully by then they have a well trained army of their own, and we can slip out the back door and bring our troops home on time. This is what should have been done in the first place had they not gone to war for an oil pipeline because the justification for doing so was presented to them; and thus they went in not to build a new sovereign nation, but rather to conquer a people for resource domination. Now the work is that much harder... the Brits seem to be getting the idea though in talking to some Taliban (but they make the folly of doing this openly), so hopefully Canada is working to form our own Trojan horse in the Taliban ranks of disaffected.

The election was an exercise in open corruption, and that’s what the Afghan government represents now. How they win approval from the tribes for that is anyone’s guess at this point?

Gus writes
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"Do you have any inside information, eagleone, that would tell you that the Minister is the one who initiated discussions with West Fraser to look for a buyer or whether it was West Fraser who asked the Minister for assistance, or whether it just came up in a discussion and both hit on the same idea during it?

Why would you even think that this is happening unilaterally?"
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You still don't get it yet Gus. I thought I was fairly clear I think its the secured creditors that will be making all the demands and the direction of any transaction to take place. The companies and the politicians are merely actors in a show. Its the secured creditors that have the strategic plan for the industry and the finance of it IMO.

It’s the agenda of the company executives to try and protect their shareholders equity (with a lot of companies that doesn’t happen), and the politicians to protect the interests of all the stakeholders involved including the communities that rely on an industry. I question the loyalties of Pat Bell as a negotiator for anyone other than the logger and the international banker. As for the companies they will likely do what maximizes ‘their’ return naturally, but in situations like Mackenzie and Kitimat all the hope these communities, first and foremost, have rests with one man and he needs to have the fire held to him, and held to account for the decisions he will make if there is to be any amount of accountability to the communities… this whole Stockholm syndrome of the Pat Bell and BC liberal cheering crowd makes absolutely no sense to me what so ever considering their track record of backroom deals that have brought us to a point where half of our industry is now sitting idle… and there is talk of selling off vast portions to Chinese foreign investment funds. .

So yes I think unilaterally the banks involved do have their own agenda... I believe they have all the power legally (although not completely secured over the wood, but for all practicable purposes)... I believe the banks have a strategic plan for the industry that is not public knowledge... I believe the international financial investment banks have no loyalty to Canada let alone Canadian workers... I believe the international financial banks have all sorts of game theories on potential economic trade off deals that go far beyond the merits of any one single factory or company. I believe it is almost to the point now where our politicians are irrelevant to the international bankers dictate. Problem is nobody talks about it, thinks about it, or wants to believe it... but I believe it to be true from what little I know with no inside information, just what seems like logical sense.

Time Will Tell I Guess