This is a difficult one.

I think one of the things we have to realize is that we are just seeing one industry here and one raw material.

Mining is really not much different. We send most of our mining products to other countries to be used for making metals and enhancing metal products. Very little is made in Canada. Our steel industry is vitually non existent. The same with the value added ship building industry. The USA is no different.

I never hear of anyone speak about adding value to the ore we extract and refined products being sent out of the country.

Even energy is the same. Want our energy? You have to buy products along with it could be our position.

I think in all cases, whether logs or ore or coal or even oil, we need to either come to the realization that the west is simply not a manufacturing part of the country, or else get into the manufacturing game in a bit more of a serious way and begin to invest the dollars we make form our resources.

So, talk about communities in the interior of BC benefitting from our extraction role in the world, I think the government needs to invest in helping secondary and tertiary manufacturers to locate here and market their prodcuts to a larger part of the world rather than just the USA.

We need to compete on equal footing with those countries who have a high standard of living, high labour rates, and still manage to supply the world with quality manufactured products that are still sought the world over.

We need to get out of the "bake sale" mentallity of selling 2x4s to the USA. Times have changed. It is no longer an easy buck to make. It is no longer "good enough".

A whole new mind set is required. Where will we find that? Where will that leadership come from? A bunch of people we vote into government because they have the gift of the gab?

What is wrong with this picture?

Right on the log exports Ben!
Over the long term,it will destroy a lot of smaller forestry based communities.
One of the most destructive things for these small communities was allowing timber to be hauled away to be milled,and the government in all their wisdom,damn well knew that when they changed the regulations to allow it.
Log exports should have disappeared years ago,but it seems pressure from the big corporations (and stumpage no doubt) has kept the government supporting it, inspite of the public pressure to end the practice.
It is probably more relevant now than ever before!
While I agree that it would be nice if we could keep politics out of the issue,that's almost impossible to do,considering so many of the underlying problems are in fact,politically related.
It's also very important that local governments in smaller communities keep their profile as high as possible.
This is no time for butt kissing,remembering that nice guy's finish last!
It IS time to let your "elected representatives" know that you expect results,also remembering that the only thing they truly understand is votes!
If your community is not getting results and only token support,,we need to remember that at election time,locally and provincially.
One of the problems with small towns is that everyone knows everyone else, and nobody wants to offend anyone.
We need to get over that!
The squeaky wheel really does get the grease, and the more attention mayors and councils can draw to their town's economic situation,the better!
The only way to get any support from any level of government is to 'em push hard.
If we lay down and just accept,they WILL put our communities on ignore in favour of the bigger centers.

Well said owl!

I agree, Ben. Your comments above are "right on the money".

The thing that is often overlooked, however, is that even when the regular markets for Mackenzie's products return to a greater state of normalcy, all the processing of logs into lumber and other products its, and other northern mills make also continues to go 'high-tech'.

Indeed, even as some mills are taking downtime from producing lumber now they are upgrading to produce even 'more' lumber, with more labour displacement, once the markets normalize in the future.

One need only study the statistics over the last hundred years, or even a far shorter period, to realize that the day of distributing incomes solely through 'employment'is heading relentlessly towards the winter solstice. And when that is reached, it's NOT going to head back towards summer.

This calls into question the necessity of re-examining just exactly WHAT it is we're trying to do. Surely, it must be self-evident that the only sane purpose of any kind of economic activity is to produce and deliver goods and services, first as needed, then as desired, by all.

The fact that this purpose creates 'employment' and provides a 'financial return' is entirely secondary to it.

Employment ~ 'work'~ is not now, nor has it ever been, an ultimate "end" desired by man. It is merely a "means" to a greater "end" ~ simply a function, like sleep.

Likewise the making of a "financial return", which in essence, is simply an indication of the correctness of some form of entrepreneurial activity. Without goods and services to buy with it, the possession of 'money' is utterly useless.

While we all must 'work', at something, since creativity is a part of human nature, to exalt the making of "work", and ever more of it, as the ultimate reason for human existence is about as stupid as prostrating oneself to endlessly piling up ever more 'money'.

What it boils down to is simply this. If the machine will do a hundred men's work, then that machine should pay a hundred men's wages. For what that machine produces, ultimately, is for the purposes of human consumption. And it does precious little good to ANYONE, emplyer or employee, to advance constantly to the point where more and more of us are released from the NECESSITY of being a 'drudge', if the production of the machine is denied us for want of an income.

What the people of Mackenzie, and other northern communities need right now is that income. In the short term, it is available, and reposes in the Employment Insurance fund. Which should be made available, not at a supposed subsistence percentage of their regular earnings, which were already inadequate in terms of purchasing power in ratio to overall consumer prices, but at a much higher rate.

The maintenance of consumer demand as "effective demand" is critical to the survival of those still providing these towns with the goods and services that are required.

Now is not the time for outdated 'moral' arguments, holdovers from the time when all labour was manual labour, and the productive power of modern technology unknown, and every man's shoulder needed at the wheel. Now is the time to realize there are two things that are no longer, and will never again be entirely synonomous, (unless we're to reverse all progress) ~ the "job", and the "income".

An example .....

Here is a trade mission some 10 years ago from Nova Scotia to Germany .....
http://www.gov.ns.ca/news/details.asp?id=19980703007

Included Interhab, a Canuck high end housing company .....

Here is the web page of that company.
[url]http://www.interhabs.ns.ca/
[/url]

Has subsidiaries in the UK and Ireland where labour rates are high, people are used to prefab homes, are used to quality construction and Canuck products are likely competitive.

Notice that the Canuck company is building houses that do not look like Canuck houses. They have taken some Canadian design principles and applied them to the local culture for a fusion which makes it a saleable product.

Andyfreeze said: "One of the problems with small towns is that everyone knows everyone else, and nobody wants to offend anyone.
We need to get over that!"

Ain't that the truth!!!! Throw in our Canadian "nice guy" tendency and it does not make for the best conditions to confront issues head on, solve them, and move on to the next stage .... they just fester till there is a major breakdown.

Socredible .... you put the most fundamental of questions out there. I do not think that is goingto be of much benefit in the short term, but most certainly is in the long term.

I remember the days of Monday to Friday + Saturday morning work weeks. 40+ hour work weeks shrunk to 35 hour work weeks and then began to move to 4 day work weeks. Newspapers were full or articles about the coming age of leisure, when we would be doing more hobbies and less work, all premised on the notion that as efficiency increased, we would be the benefactors of that efficiency.

One of the problems, at least the way I see it in my simple mind, is that we have not been able to overcome the notion that the only way to distribute the benefits is through work. It is, of course, not quite as simple as that, however, it seems to me that other countries are not too scared of the notion of 6 weeks of legislated vacation time each year as well as shorter work weeks than we have and superior "social safety nets" in many instances.

Where have the benefits of greater efficiencies gone to? That would take several pages to answer. But I think we need to address that a bit more frequently and seriously than we have been.

Posted by: socredible on May 21 2008 8:39 AM
What the people of Mackenzie, and other northern communities need right now is that income. In the short term, it is available, and reposes in the Employment Insurance fund. Which should be made available, not at a supposed subsistence percentage of their regular earnings, which were already inadequate in terms of purchasing power in ratio to overall consumer prices, but at a much higher rate.

Great comments here. Experiencing first hand I can say the workshare program has its benefits. Its disturbing though and disheartening to know a person working minimum wage for thier required 595 hours has the same rights as a 'suddenly unemployeed' senior employee with 28 years of service. Both equally entitled to the same % rate. Seems rather unfair to the long term employee, that has coughed up more than they will ever see.
We know the forest industry is in trouble..and we are in for a long ride. . We keep hearing things will improve late 2009-early 2010. However work share will only support employees for a maximum of 10 months. Feels like a band- aide on a festering cut!

We stand to loose many skilled trades people-and good employees to other provinces. Both the Companies and government need to recongize that there isn't a huge resource out there in smaller communites for these people. Eventually they are forced to work elsewhere.

They also need to realize employment in the forest industry won't look attractive for quite sometime . Finding replacments will be very difficult.

The government needs to square that circle... If the forest companies are allowed to withhold severance pay for up to two years, and yet EI only runs for up to a year... then we have a serious problem on the horizon.

The companies should not be allowed to hold out on the severance pay based on seniority rules in the union that were never intended to be associated with severance pay. The government needs to step in now so people can have some certainty and plan for it.

Example of Winton Global's two mills in PG is that they all get laid off next month... have been told not to expect going back to work until September 09 at the earliest... EI runs out Spring of 09... union contract runs out summer 09, severance will not be paid until June 2010 at the earliest...

Most are suspecting they will be offered their jobs back... after EI runs out... after the union contract runs out... a year before they are eligible for the severance pay... and the offer will be for 60% of what they made previously... but they will have no income for a year after living on half their normal income for a year and will lose their seniority as well as severance if the mill starts up with the starving masses who could no longer hold out.

Lots of great comments here.

In the short-term, I think we do have to help out the impacted employees as best we can. In the medium to long-term, I think we (including the government) need to take an HONEST and HARD look at whether the industry we currently have, is sustainable.

It's great to say that forestry will be back stronger than ever, but will it? After most of the baby boomers retire, are young people going to flock to the forestry sector in numbers large enough to backfill those jobs or will they seek employment in other, less volatile, fields? Will there be fewer manufacturing jobs and more and more information workers? Will intellectual capital, instead of physical labour, start to drive the BC and Canadian economy? Is it realistic to think that we can compete with Russia if and when they start to tap into their ridiculous forest reserves and start cranking out the same product we currently make? Canada has been the "supplier of natural resources" even before the country was founded. Will that still be our role in the globe for the next 100 years? If so, are we positioned to supply these resources to the areas of the globe with the largest population growth and who need them, namely China and India?

We need to find an edge. Perhaps that edge is in the development of new technology and expertise that we can provide to nations that are in the infancy stages of their industry. Perhaps it's in highly specialized products and mills, requiring highly specialized workers, instead of the "production line" stuff we're making now. Perhaps it's in secondary manufacturing, like Owl eluded to.

I think there are all sorts of opportunities and threats, but I get the sense that nobody wants to start this discussion and LEAD us into the "next stage" of BC's forestry economy. It will do current and future workers no good to pretend that these opportunities and threats do not exist. If we don't start to seriously look at them and be proactive about how we're going to proceed I have a gut feeling that this will be the beginning of the end for this particular industry in BC.

NMG...I think you are so right with thinking about the long term here. I dont think there is a single employee in the forest industry that hasn't got the whole picture in thier minds. If they dont...they better have a long hard look.

The writing is already on the wall. The 'good old days' are gone. That is my opinion right or wrong.

Owl wrote:- "One of the problems, at least the way I see it in my simple mind, is that we have not been able to overcome the notion that the only way to distribute the benefits is through work."

That's one of the biggest problems to be overcome, Owl. The "moral" notion that says " Let no man among you eat unless he's first worked" is embedded firmly in our minds. Even though what was an entirely justifiable proposition in the 1st Century AD from an "economic" perspective, is patently ridiculous from that same perspective today.

Yet, even with that, the observable goal of most people is to try to get themselves in a position where they can have an income from some source other than endless labour. That doesn't mean they don't want to still work. Only, I think, that they don't want to be FORCED to work.

As an example, just look what almost everyone does whenever 6/49's Jackpot gets up to the level where the lucky winner could "have his cake and eat it too."

They rush out to get a ticket, even those who hardly ever buy them. Even though the odds of winning are worse, I believe, than they are with a smaller prize and fewer players.

They're not only trying to get "something for nothing", but trying to have the ability to be SECURE with a nice nest egg in the Bank, yet still be able to spend a good part of their winnings on 'things' they want.

It seems to be one of the curious features of human nature that, aside from 6/49 winners, that many of those who have done the least amount of actual 'work' themselves for the money they've gained, are so often the most vocal in insisting that no one should ever be made comfortable without being made uncomfortable first.

While many who have genuinely worked 'hard' for their wealth, while they often wish they could've got ahead easier, usually don't seem exhibit much of a desire to inflict what they've gone through on anyone else.

Perhaps it is noteworthy for a better understanding: things cannot change in the management of B.C.’s public forests as long you have a former Ministry of Forests and Range District Manager, Regional Manager and, now, Deputy Minister who stated under oath: “I don’t know the logistics of a logging show”

Dogs- I suggest the author do so very basis research prior to writing an article.

1. Only 3 % AAC (Private and Crown) are exported aslogs. Most of the exports are from the South Coast- very little from the Central and Northern Interior-

2. At the present time (2008) log exports to the US are down due to the housing crisis. Japan and South Korea are the next largest countries were logs are exported to. More recently some (very minor volume) has been exported to India. As for China - only minor volumes are exported to this country. Why- logs have to be either debarked and or fumigated prior to shipment- where can this be done - PCLS on the Fraser- so the capacity to this is minimal- so large volumes are not shipped to China.

3. Lastly is the author took the time to check the basic economic of exporting logs he would have discovered that currently you may get $350 to $400 US MBF in the states for the logs - but what is the cost of producing these logs- it cost approx. $350- $400 US to log and truck and or rail the logs to market from the Kamloops/Williams Lake areas- in other words break even if you are luckly. Quesnel, Prince George and beyond forget it you can break even.

Please do some basic research prior to writing. Please.