Would a Panel and Fibre mill ever open in PG? Is it an opportunity? Maybe, but I doubt it would be allowed. Anyone knocking on PG's door would not get past Deb's World of new regulations designed to keep the wood industry out of PG.
The green house business is also out. They burn wood in Vancouver, so how could they ever compete or be welcome in PG? We'd sooner starve.
In Deb's World we can't even get food trucked in as the diesel trucks make smoke as well.
PG is in for some tough hungry years.

I used to vote left wing in my younger years but never again, but in defence fo the "Deb"

What a load of horse manure. Didn`t your read the article.

I sometimes wonder if you are even in the boat?

The economic problems in the United States coupled with the rising Canadian dollar are sure causing big time problems for the forest industry in B.C.

I see the price of shares in the company which owns our local pulp mills (Canfor Pulp Income Fund) has dropped from $16.45 a share about 4 months ago to $9.12 yesterday. It looks to me like some investors are seeing a rocky road ahead for the future earnings prospects for these mills.

If any one wishes to see a 6 month stock chart for the Canfor Pulp Income Fund click on the following link.

http://tsedb.globeinvestor.com/invest/investSQL/tsx.show_chart?iaction=Generate&pl_period=6D&pl_primary_listing=CFX.UN-T


If anyone wishes to read an article about the current economic conditions in the United States that are causing these woes for our forest industry click on the following link. (A lot of smart people think Canada as well as many other countries in the world are living in a similar debt bubble also, but not to the same extent as the one in the U.S.)

http://www.thetrumpet.com/index.php?q=4406.2650.0.0

Runner46 says .."What a load of horse manure. Didn`t your read the article."

Sure I read Deb's World, and I agree (except for the typo) it is horse manure. No way around that fact. Every time someone farts somebody is going to think up a new regulation, then nobody can eat cabbage or beans.

On the other hand I am not keen on anymore plants that need to use the Fraser Rive as their toxic dump. If a mill needs water they should be put beside a lake and told to keep the water clean.

"If a mill needs water they should be put beside a lake and told to keep the water clean."

That is the very problem my dear YDPC. We tell people one thing, they do another, and then we walk away, shrugging our shoulders, saying it is too expensive to enforce and too exopensive for the pasnt owners.

Shit or get off the pot. It takes more than telling.

If it is a lake, and they need water to cycle through their industrial process which typically requires clean water to remove some toxin from their product, give them an artificial basin large enough for their process to work for a month before the water get too deleterious, and then tell them to stick both their intake and effluent pipes in it and be done with it. Then you will find out how quickly they will be able to purify the water at the shit end of the pipe.

Or do like the French have been known to do. Put the intake on he downstream side of the river, and the outflow on the upper side of the river with a baffle creating a channel next to the river used for both the intake and outflow so that the water does not mix 100% immediately. See how quickly the plant regulates its own effluent.

Telling simply ain't enough anymore. And your favourite person on Council is one of the few people who admits to that. Your approach is just the same olde same olde.

"Would a Panel and Fibre mill ever open in PG?" is the question ....

Not like the one in New Westminster. Here is waht it said about that plant.

"The New Westminster mill manufactures specialty products including hardboard panels, erosion control wood mulch and baled fibre from wood that has been recovered from demolished homes, and broken pallets."

Most of the feedstock is from recycled material. We do not have enough feedstock from recycling here. We have feedstock from discards of the lumber industry. That feeds the pulp mills, the pellet plants, the oriented strandboard plants and the cogen boilers.

In other words, we have found an end use for that and hardboard has not been one of those uses as far as I know.

Now, of course, we are not producing enough lumber to feed those secondary uses we have developed and we run into a problem since products such as pulp and pellets are still in demand, but the demand for the products which generate the feedstock has dropped.

So, unlike what YDPC says, if someone wants to build a plant like that on the vacant properties in the BCR, people in positions of authority would be tripping over each other to give them any permits they want.

This stuff about protecting our air is just a bunch of BS. No one really believes we would give up 80 new jobs just to make our community more attractive to people who want to live in a healthy community.

Oh, why 80 jobs instead of the 126 in New Westminster? Because a new plant would not be built as inefficiently as the old plant. An efficient plant buys more technical know how from Sweden and creatres fewer jobs.

You see, we can't do what the Swedes do. Remember, that is the country which is so far on the left that no one is interested in working there. Yet they outpace much of the rest of the world, including Canada, in selling their high tech products to the rest of the world while keeping their industry clean and their people healthy and wealthy. So rich, in fact, that some don't even have to work! ..

;-)

Europe and especially Scandanavia make way more money from their resources because they don't give them away, they recover much more value from their waste before they dump it, and they demand their resources benefit the country as a whole, not just those at the top of the food chain. When times are good they invest in technology and research and development to get yet more value during lean times. They learned hard lessons long ago. Canada and Canadians could prosper if we stopped copying U.S. slash and burn style industry and looked to europe. If leaning a little left is so bad why is Finland the most productive country in the world. And why is Norway so stinkin' rich?
We need to process and manufacture our resources at home. We need the polical will to demand value from our land!

Well, Norway is so stinkin' rich because they have huge offshore oil reserves. Notwithstanding that, I have spent lots of time with the forest industry in Sweden, and I agree that we need to look at the way they operate as opposed to the status quo.

"Well, Norway is so stinkin' rich because they have huge offshore oil reserves"

That is very true for Norway. But it is also quite true that Canada is in a similar position with respect to oil sands and would likely still have a trade deficit if it were not for the oil we have available. Canada's is currency is considered to be a petro $.

proved Norwegian oil reserves 8.5 billion bbl (1 January 2005)
proved Canadian oil reserves 178.8 billion bbl including oil sands (1 January 2005 est.)

We have 7 times the population but 20 times the oil reserves. So, on a per capita basis, that would make us at least as stinkin' rich as Norwegians except for two things - the tar sand oil is a bit more expensive to extract than the North Sea oil and Noway distributes the wealth country wide while we distribute the wealth with a considerable bias to the province in which it is found.

Would it not be easier and/or more efficient for Norway to distribute their wealth within their country, given their relatively small size?

Canada has roughly 30 times the area that Norway does, along with primary clusters of population spread over that entire land mass. We don't exactly have an efficient layout for many things, such as ensuring health services are available to everyone, good roads and infrastructure, etc.

For all intents and purposes, the entire Norweigan economy would be used to service an area a third the size of BC. There has to be some natural benefits there.

finland?

Ah Finland and Sweden. Finland is my homeland. Scandinavia is not necessarily wealthy, but the people are considered to be healthy. Keep in mind that Finland has been in the forestry industry much longer than Canada, the Fins have built or supplied equipment used by most of our mills. Most of our upgrades are Fin related. It has been their bread and butter for a century or better. Considering that all the Scandinavian countries fit inside of BC's geographical area, it is quite unique that they still have trees everywhere. Remove 1/3 of that area which is not loggable due to terrain, or the artic circle portion which is relatively barren. Yet they remain profitable, so u have to ask ??? What the hell are we doing wrong?? Trees in those areas, mostly pine, are 12" round max, toothpicks compared to what we harvest. Logs are also bought from private landowners, who log their own land. EX i rented a cabin from a man who owns 240 hectares. He clearcuts sections of his land, piles the logs and the mills buy from him, they come and grade it and pick it up. He has forestry practices he must follow, even on his land, he must burn the cultivated areas and replant. He also has his own log mill, making log outhouses, mini cabins and full size cabins. Taxes are huge in Scandinavia, gas is well over $2/L CAN and has been that way before the oil barons started raping us. That tax revenue pays a big part in the health and welfare system. The average person though is not wealthy. Their governments have different priorites than ours. HMM i wonder how much timber is exported there?
Wood heating and cooking is still very prevalent there. I love both countries, but this government doesn't serve its people. Perhaps there is a lack of unity, as Canada has never had to defend itself from enemies. Maybe we are just peace loving and enjoy a sweet deal with our neighbouring protector.http://zeitgeistmovie.com/ Watch this if you have 2 hours, interesting!!

We could be a wealthy nation, very wealthy, but why aren't we?

If Sweden does everything in forestry "so perfectly" how come they have to "import" logs (from Scotland, of all places, amongst others), to keep many of their mills running?

I've known many Swedes, and Finns, and Norwegians. People that have moved here and become citizens. I've never known any of them that ever had any desire to move back to their former particular 'paradise' where everything was "done right" to ever live again.

It all boils down to whether you believe you can spend your money yourself to your best advantage, or whether you need to have your government decide what's best for you, and spend your money for you on what ever IT decides that is.

Of course, in either case, you have to HAVE the (sufficient) money, (in an accurate nexus with 'price values' of goods and services for sale in your community), first.

They don't, and we don't either. 'Collective prices', at any point in time, are always greater than the 'collective incomes' available to liquidate them. Unrepayable 'Debt' that increases perpetually is the result.

And so we continually have a 'financial' poverty in the midst of, (in our case much more so than theirs), a 'physical' plenty.

I too have known norgs and swedes and they did move back home. If the swedes can run on other peoples logs they must be doing something right in their mills. Germany makes great products and imports almost all their raw mterials, with good wages and vacation time to boot. I'm canadian and wouldn't leave, I just don't understand why we can't shake this "hewers of wood and water" mentality and create more jobs using our own resources. This sentiment rings true with many albertans also, why do they ship crude? Why don't they refine more of it at home?

Yes, why don't we use our own logs to create jobs for our own people?

I came to this article through Google news. I work at Panel and Fibre. Oops, I mean "worked" at P&F for 10 years. It's been frustrating to see the lack of capital spending during my time there. Surprisingly, Hardboard panels still sell quite well and we were often sold out and playing catch up to meet customer orders. We were able to jack up prices and still stay sold out.

It would have been wonderful if Canfor had spent some money to modernize the mill and increase productivity before the perfect storm of a soaring dollar and high fiber costs sealed our fate.

We were a great group of employees and I will always cherish my time there.

Pulpworker, there isn't ONE industrialised country in all the world that currently COULD, (even if it wanted to), buy ALL (the total "$" amount) of its own production with ALL (the total "$" amount) of 'incomes' distributed in the course of making that production. If this is so, and it is, then how can any of them BUY ALL the actual goods imported in exchange for their own production that's exported?

We wouldn't want to buy ALL our own pulp, or oil, or lumber, or coal, or wheat, etc. ourselves. Or even ALL the more manufactured 'value-added' products that could presently be made here from them ourselves.

We produce far more of all those commodities than we currently could ever actually consume.

But that's immaterial to my argument. For we COULDN'T buy them, at the total 'price' it's cost to make them, even if we wanted to. Whether we 'value-add' them further here or not.

We don't, as CONSUMERS, have access to enough 'money' to pay the price required to liquidate the TOTAL costs that add up to that price. Unless we go further and further into 'debt'.

Because present labor incomes are only a "part" of those costs. The "other part" is made up primarily of sums which have been "allocated" as 'costs', (not distributed as 'incomes' to anyone over the course of making that production).

For things like "depreciation", for instance. Never paid out to anyone, but still 'costed' into price. And these charges must be recovered from some source other than current incomes.

And they are. They're recovered, in the main, from 'money' received from 'exports'. When we can 'capture' some other country's markets. Or, by a further expansion of 'debt'.

The only problem is, we can only make this system work if we can retain what we've captured ~ some other country's markets. But that other country is in exactly the same spot we are. And somebody has to lose in that kind of arrangement. Always.

So our trade internationally isn't really what 'trade' should be ~ an exchange of 'relative surpluses' ~ different 'goods' both parties to the transaction might have that are 'surplus' to their internal needs.

Rather it's an international trade to import "Money". We want the other country's 'credit', which can then go to make up the shortage of money needed to more fully liquidate 'costs' that have been carried through into prices for goods for sale in our own markets.

When we 'export' more than we 'import' and receive "money" for the difference, (which we currently think we need to be able to buy that portion of the goods we've made that do remain here), we're said to be running a "favourable" balance of trade.

In reality, unless we're "importing" equivalent 'real wealth' as much as we're "exporting" it, our country is getting physically poorer, not richer.
We're sending actual products abroad, and getting little scraps of paper in return for them.

Such a system is never sustainable long term. It has ALWAYS lead to 'war'. And it will again, unless we change it.

Right now, we're engaged in a race to the bottom. We're trying to make BC 'number one' again, just as Gordo says. Only what he doesn't tell us, is we'll be counting from the bottom up!

hmmmm ....

Blah blah blah. Socredible you seem not to be a fan of Scandinavia, but thats your perogative. I wouldn't say or suggest that the Scandinavians were doing it "perfect" but perhaps better, given the the history, i'd say they've managed to prosper, be productive and profitable with limited resources. Why Fins came here? Obviously for better opportunities like everyone else. At the time when Fins emigrated and to present, taxes are high and cost of living is high compared to Canada. Some go back perhaps due to missing the culture and lifestyle, but most stay. Of the 50 Fin families i grew up with, none have left North America, but they do visit the homeland frequently. Scandinavia does import 250K tonnes of timber annually from Scotland, that is all of Scandinavia. I believe the number they import from Russia is significantly larger. But bear in mind the difference of manufactured products. I wont bore you with the details. BC alone exports over 20M tonnes of raw log annually!!! Won't be long i gather before we will purchase those law rogs back??

Some more 'blah'. I've nothing against Scandinavia per se, pisspulper, and have many friends and even in-laws who came from there. Fine people all. But often times people here seem to suffer from a version of the "distant pastures look greener" syndrome when comparing countries.

When I was a kid, one of my uncles followed the 'communist' propaganda that made Russia look like the 'worker's paradise'. He actually beleived things were so much better there than here. (Though when the rest of the family got fed up constantly hearing all this, and offered to take up a collection to send him to Russia, one way, he declined!) He wasn't alone, though, in that era many others fell for the same line.

Later on, much of the same propaganda was transferred to 'social democratic' Sweden, the country that seemed to be doing everything 'right'. They made their own cars, SAAB and Volvo; produced the finest ball bearings, SKF; were into consumer electrical products known the world over, Electrolux; their Oerlikon and Bofors guns were used by militaries (on both sides) during WW II; and they even made their own fighter planes for their own airforce, SAAB again. All things, and many more, that they semed they could do, but we could not. People natuarally wondered "Why?"

Now the 'bloom has come off the rose" somewhat in recent decades. Volvo's car division is now owned by Ford, and SAAB's by GM. Both are in trouble. SKF still makes fine bearings, but so do a host of other countries, too. They've lost market share. And Electrolux isn't dominant in vacuum cleaners like it used to be, nor anything else.

As for their timber industry, at one point Sweden's forest were so overcut they couldn't keep their mills all operating without large log imports from Scotland, Russia, and the other Baltic states. Hardly a glowing endorsement of the way "sustained yield" was 'supposed' to be practiced there vs. what was going on here.

The 'reason' this has happened is fundamentally the same reason why BC, which if you looked in the "Official Centennial Record" put out in 1958, and sponsored by ads from our manufacturering industries here then, was evidently making things here then that are no longer being made here at all.

Things, in regards to our timber industries, like 'chainsaws',on -and off-highway'logging trucks', marine engines for tugboats, digesters for pulp mills, and an array of sawmill equipment. None of which are made here anymore, either at all, or as a mere shadow of what was being done then.

And now people come out and suggest we should be 'value-adding', or making 'more capital investment' in our plants. Ask yourself this, pisspulper, just where are we going to SELL ALL the output of that? Who wants it? And more importantly, WHO can AFFORD TO PAY US FOR IT? AND HOW?