I hope Pat's correct. The Liberals have stood by and watched the lumber industry be destroyed.

Raw logs exports don't count ...

This used to be a cash town, Pat

Good job Mr. Bell.

Increased lumber sales to China will mean less reliance on the US market. 10 years from now, with the port of Prince Rupert, China could be our biggest single customer.

"Raw logs exports don't count" ...

No kidding !! Not sure how we're gonna get the aboriginals on side with this one, but I don't see them giving up their very lucrative raw log exports without some sort of compensation IMO.

Its not going to be much of a bonus to our mills and create significant jobs in our own forest industry if the status quo stays the same, and these specific groups continue to have "their" futures tied up in shipping raw logs to China, where they can be milled into lumber over there and the finished lumber then sold to the local Chinese market.

Most credible experts agree - Pat Bell & the Liberals have lost touch with reality!

Please explain to us how the downturn in the US economy and the loss of the US housing market is the Liberal's and Pat Bells fault. Should we force them to buy our lumber for houses they aren't building. Would the NDP be able to use their incredible business savvy to force them to keep our mills running.
The trips to China have been rabidly criticized by many of you. Perhaps we should play the whipped dog and not even have tried.
As for the raw logs put the blame where it lies, with the First Nations.

Lets not forget politicians do not always do what is the best thing for us tax payers, so I would not be counting my chickens just yet.

I am glad you brought up the business savvy of the NDP. It reminds me of the cost over runs of the Liberals which make the fast ferry job look downright amateurish! Yup - the so called business experts never saw a market crash coming as they were too busy lining their pockets. Wait a sec... what is that sucking sound? Must be Gordo and pals lining up at the public trough to collect their big pensions they voted themselves.

6millin homes of concrete does not even begin to compare to half a million homes built of wood.

I will say now that I believe it is fact that in ten years from now China will not even be building 1% of the amount of homes built in the United States out of wood. In fact I would go even further and argue that in 10 years China will not even build as many houses out of wood as BC's largest city does. That is the reality of a communist system (of which all Pat's dealings are with) combined with an overcrowded land base.

Eagleone

The Chinese today exceed the figures you state many times over.

What your saying is you expect the Chinese market to vastly shrink in the next 10 years?

Something to consider, in 2009 the USofA imported approx 5 billion board feet of lumber from Canada. China, in their infancy with softwood imported 1 billion board feet from Canada. Canada was their 3rd largest supplier, behind Russia and New Zealand. That means they imported more than 1 billion board feet from Russia and New Zealand, making them nearly as large of a consumer on the world market as the USofA is today.

Now take into consideration that Russia is only a few months away from implementing an 80% tax on softwood exports. You think maybe they are leaving the door open just a tad?

Then factor in that China's economy is growing at a rate of almost 8%, that is huge.

Yes -- that's what Pat does -- talk and talk. Last time I looked around, the forestry industry was pretty well decimated in BC.

Yes -- great work Liberals. Keep talking though. Someone might just believe ...

Savvvy

The world economic crash is the BC Liberals fault, I suspect they also invented Ponzi schemes and definatly were involved with Enron.

I guess it would be better for them to sit on their hands and do nothing?

If the world economic crash is the fault of the BC Liberals ( I didn't know they are THAT powerful!) - then the infamous Asian flu (which is claimed to have ruined the economy of B.C. in the nineties) was the fault of the BC NDP.

Thanks, Savvvy.

http://www.forestrylawservices.com/blog/index.php?/archives/8-The-Case-for-Free-Trade-in-Logs-and-Lumber.html

I came across this opinion piece a while ago, might be of interest to some of you out there. Don't completely write off log exports without all the info.

This agreement certainly won't hurt...but keep the following in mind-

- as discussed previously the majority of this is low grade lumber, low $ , mills do not make money selling this
- yes there is opportunity to expand volumes of higher priced grades but there is a price point with China.......already with the latest price increases into North American markets the Chinese have put away their po books
- re Prince Rupert......it has some value for imports....not so good for exports. There are few ocean carriers servicing the port and only 1 railroad....CN. CN is the highest priced and least forest products friendly railway of any servicing west coast ports. Transit time to China ex Prince Rupert is substancially longer than ex Vancouver......no stuffing facilities are near the port....rates are much higher than they are through Vancouver, Seattle etc. Container availibilty ex Prince Rupert will not support increased lumber exports for numerous reasons- very limited ocean carriers ex Rupert, CN is interested in loading empty containers in the US and or Toronto or Montreal....no access to the hundreds of thousands of containers that move via CP, BNSF, UP......no access to 80% of the overall container fleet as those carriers do not call Rupert.

Stompen Tom the city of Surrey BC built more wood frame houses last year than all of China (fact), regardless of how much wood they ordered for other purposes.

Stompen Tom they were involved in Enron. BC Rail and Enron were joined at the hip... its why California refused to pay their bill. Furthermore BC's very own 360 Networks was involved in the reciprocal revenue swapping with Enron and Global Crossing, and it all originated here in BC protected by the BCSC and the BC Supreme Court... they were all in on it... probably why Accetnure is now doing the billing for BC Hydro, and why no feign investor in their right mind would invest in a BC based corporation.

Eagleone,

you seem to have an axe to grind, any proof to your allegations?

You bet lots of proof Stompen Tom. 10th Circuit Bankruptcy court of Manhattan and the BC Supreme Court document the reciprocal trading fairly well in identifying the offending parties and where it all originated. Those are public records for anyone to follow up on.

The position of the BC liberals was that they were elected to deregulate and therefore wanted no part in enforcing securities crimes that originated in BC, because they felt it would limit future investments in this province if they were to acknowledge the level of corruption in our markets. The 360 networks multi billion dollar fraud bankruptcy is a prime example of public corruption documented in the BC Supreme Court enabled by liberal policies. That 360 fraud stole the future of BC in the data com business, and shipped its potential south of the boarder costing BC untold billions in future investments. The hundreds of millions in South American accounts greased someones pockets for sure.

The BCSC under the BC liberals does not even investigate securities crimes in this province anymore. They simply feign the appearance of investigating by sending out letters and eventually conclude it is beyond their scope to investigate further. It sure makes them look silly when it all comes out in American courts the crimes the BCSC refuses to investigate. It hurts BC in the end, because no foreign investor is going to put their money into operations in this province that are regulated by the BCSC, because the risk of fraud is way to high... its why the VSE is almost a dead exchange now under the BC liberals.

Plenty of proof for anyone that doesn't simply listen to liberal spin.