What would YOU suggest for a Plan B?

[flamingfingers]

Plan A seems to have lost a lot of luster so what would you suggest as a Plan B?

What BC wants for Christmas: A Plan B
By Dermod Travis
Published December 8, 2014 12:35 pm | 1 Comment

Dear Santa,
You probably don't get Christmas letters from an entire province, but this year we hope you'll think of adding B.C. to your magical journey. We know we're asking a lot of you, but B.C. could really use a Plan B this Christmas.

You see it all started a couple of Easters ago. The Easter bunny -- you know, the competition down the calendar street -- came hoppin' along and told everyone to put all their eggs into her liquefied natural gas basket. All of them, Santa.

It sounded great at the time, really it did. Who could say no to a prosperity fund? A $100-billion prosperity fund to boot.

But it's not working out so well and everyone just assumed that the Easter bunny had a few other baskets behind her ears if things went south. Well, Santa, it looks like she doesn't. And a few of us -- OK, most of us -- are getting a little antsy.

Here's the thing Santa, B.C. is developing a bit of a -- how do you put it -- reputation. Some folks say the province is stuck in a neverending battle between huggers and frackers played out on a continuous loop, year after year after year.

Protests, environmental assessments (one or two, take your pick), injunctions, PR strategies (strained or leaked), appeals, human chains, petitions, more protests, SLAPP suits, social license permits.

Seriously, Santa, the list goes on and on.

And it ain't going over so well with investors. Never knew they were such nervous Nellies. Heck, one tax break too little and suddenly they're off playing in another kid's sandbox.

Oh, that reminds us, Kinder Morgan could really use a new GPS this Christmas. They still seem to be using the one left behind by Enron.

Then, to top it all off, a few months back the Supreme Court of Canada told some of us that we may be squatters. On someone else's land.

Look, we know you can't stuff a massive GDP hike into B.C.'s Christmas stocking, but maybe this year you could get us a few of the things from our wish list.

A new way to reconcile competing interests in the province on economic development would be great. Like, wow, best gift ever. And it would be so neat if it came fully assembled.

We know you can't till the entire province into an organic farm, but maybe you could show us a better way to use our agricultural land and market our products. No need to include those trade mission accessories that come with it, there are a whole bunch of folk right here in the neighbourhood who eat all the time.

In fact, we crunched some numbers last night and you know what, 16.3 million people live in Alaska, Alberta, Washington State and B.C. combined? Well, of course you did, but that's still a lot of mouths to feed.

Speaking of which, any chance we could return that clawback toy you let B.C. play with a few years back? Not that we're ungrateful, but it got into the wrongs hands. It really should come with instructions.

Between us, did you ever notice how uppity the Easter bunny gets whenever anyone says value added? You think she'd know that old saying: give a bunny a carrot and she eats a carrot. Teach a bunny how to cultivate carrots and you're overrun with bunnies. Or something like that.

It would be fantastic though if we could add some value to B.C.'s natural resources right here in B.C. before we ship them off overseas only to buy them back in manufactured goods a few months later.

That new board game "How not to cut off your nose to spite your face" would be cool too. You know the one. The winner is the first to clue in that government cuts in one area may result in massive losses for government in another, thereby negating the original savings and then some.

The best part of getting a Plan B for Christmas, Santa, is that if the Easter bunny turns out to have only been partly right (still not looking good on that front BTW), we get the best of both plans.

Oh, nearly forgot. Please don't go down the chimney at the legislature. Seismic issues. We'll put the milk and cookies on the main steps.

Yours truly,
British Columbia

PS: If you can do anything about ferry fares, no grumbling from this quarter.

Dermod Travis is the executive director of IntegrityBC.
- See more at: http://thetyee.ca/Blogs/TheHook/2014/12 ... OGW4R.dpuf

[Jo]

Let's try this again, without the same tired rhetoric were trying to move away from. Take the bonehead type comments to the Bickering Room.

[flamingfingers]

I would like to see more resource development that was responsible and ethical and subject to appropriate government oversight - oversight that eliminated things like the Polley mine disaster, the rupture of KM pipeline in Burnaby and an evaluation of raw logs being shipped overseas as opposed to a value added industry here.

Surely there are people here on the forums who can make a case for increased government revenue aside from LNG!

[Buckeye19]

A value added industry already exists in BC. If you want to keep raw logs here instead of shipping them overseas let's start by paying the unskilled union workers what they're actually worth (a heck of a lot less than they make now). That would be a step - a leap in the right direction.

[Hurtlander]

A value added industry already exists in BC. If you want to keep raw logs here instead of shipping them overseas let's start by paying the unskilled union workers what they're actually worth (a heck of a lot less than they make now). That would be a step - a leap in the right direction.

Really? Exactly which part of the unskilled unionized sawmill workforce are you talking about....the millwrights, the electricians, the computer techs, the heavy equipment operators, the lumber graders, the heavy duty mechanics, the dry kiln operators, the power engineers in the operations with boilers, or do you just mean the guys running multi million dollar high tech milling and log breakdown equipment, or is it the unskilled workers loading rail cars and trucks out in the shipping department.....
Regardless, there are three big NON-Union mills in my area, and two smaller NON-union mills, they pay the same rate, and in some instances a higher rate, as well as the same employee benefits as the union mills. Are you suggesting that it's only the union mills that over pay its "unskilled workforce". What about the "unskilled" workers at the very successful mill in West Bank, are over paid as well?
The OP wasn't trying to start a union vs non union debate.....anyhow, there's enough raw logs leaving the province each year from crown land to run something like four large mills and enough raw logs from private lands to run another two...yes this creates a few jobs.. But there have been recent mill closures due to running out of timber supply, and a few more mills slated to close in the next year or two because of timber supply. Wouldn't it make sense to keep the logs, at least the logs from crown land here in BC to help keep our existing mills running long term, keeping hundreds of people working instead of just a hand full of loggers shipping logs for export?

[Buckeye19]

"Keeping hundreds of people working instead of just a handful of loggers shipping logs for export."? Is that seriously what you think? The whole reason we ship raw logs overseas is because there isn't a market for that timber here. Raw log exports supports jobs that otherwise wouldn't be economically viable. If it was just as simple as processing the wood here in British Columbia, that's what we would be doing - it's not.

As far as production costs go, we just simply aren't competitive with countries like China. In turn, we can't sell products that are competitive with what they produce. If we could pay Joe Blow what he was actually worth to stack 2x4's then we would start to get somewhere but we can't thanks to unions driving up the rate of unskilled labour.

What is the difference between sending a few raw logs to people who can add more value to it than we can and sending them dimensional lumber and buying it back as furniture?

[Boda]

"Keeping hundreds of people working instead of just a handful of loggers shipping logs for export."? Is that seriously what you think? The whole reason we ship raw logs overseas is because there isn't a market for that timber here. Raw log exports supports jobs that otherwise wouldn't be economically viable. If it was just as simple as processing the wood here in British Columbia, that's what we would be doing - it's not.

As far as production costs go, we just simply aren't competitive with countries like China. In turn, we can't sell products that are competitive with what they produce. If we could pay Joe Blow what he was actually worth to stack 2x4's then we would start to get somewhere but we can't thanks to unions driving up the rate of unskilled labour.

What is the difference between sending a few raw logs to people who can add more value to it than we can and sending them dimensional lumber and buying it back as furniture?

Buck, I don't know all the ins & outs of import/export commodities but It does baffle me as to why the immediate argument against exporting value added products is always "we can't do it". It's just not economically viable because we have to pay too high of wages.

My profession exposes me to the wood fibre processing industry and I see mills supported with a unionized work force working overtime very frequently to produce the quotas required in high demand markets. That leads me to believe that the cost of labor is not as great a factor in the cost of these exported products as those in support of exporting raw materials make it out to be.
That is admittedly a simplistic analysis but the point is if cost of wages is only a factor in SOME value added industries why can't we introduce similar mechanisms to increase the percentage of other value added products exported versus the export of raw materials instead of always saying no?

The one that really makes me wonder is pumping bitumen all over the continent. Seems to me we shouldn't even move that stuff before it's rendered down to least risk (environmentally) form of doing so.
We already own these resources. We can flog them quick for immediate return or develop value added processes to release them into to the market under most advantageous conditions for Canadians. Which in my view should mean highest return over the LONG run.

I do understand that value added exporting is a long term goal and won't come cheap to the current generation, but I also believe it is the direction that this generation should strive to implement for the long term benefit of all Canadians.

[Hurtlander]

"Keeping hundreds of people working instead of just a handful of loggers shipping logs for export."? Is that seriously what you think? The whole reason we ship raw logs overseas is because there isn't a market for that timber here. Raw log exports supports jobs that otherwise wouldn't be economically viable. If it was just as simple as processing the wood here in British Columbia, that's what we would be doing - it's not.

As far as production costs go, we just simply aren't competitive with countries like China. In turn, we can't sell products that are competitive with what they produce. If we could pay Joe Blow what he was actually worth to stack 2x4's then we would start to get somewhere but we can't thanks to unions driving up the rate of unskilled labour.

What is the difference between sending a few raw logs to people who can add more value to it than we can and sending them dimensional lumber and buying it back as furniture?

There actually is a demand for the timber here, mills, both union and non-union alike are finding it more and more difficult to find adequate timber supplies. Now with the low Canadian dollar mills are starting to make good money, but they need logs.
Don't kid yourself that our raw logs are only coming back to us as furniture, those logs are coming back as studs and dimensional lumber. And please stop blaming unionized workers for the demise of our forest industry, the non-Union "unskilled" mill workers are just as well paid, but according to you aren't part of the problem...anyhow, just keep in mind that the non-union mill workers also need a reliable timber supply for long term future employment, those raw logs belong to the people of BC, and should be used to employ British Columbians first and foremost.

[Hurtlander]

You might also want to check with the former mill workers in some of the interior communities who were gainfully employed until the timber supply dried up. They now get to watch loads of logs from other regions of the province go right through their towns on the way to the docks.

[Rwede]

"Keeping hundreds of people working instead of just a handful of loggers shipping logs for export."? Is that seriously what you think? The whole reason we ship raw logs overseas is because there isn't a market for that timber here. Raw log exports supports jobs that otherwise wouldn't be economically viable. If it was just as simple as processing the wood here in British Columbia, that's what we would be doing - it's not.

As far as production costs go, we just simply aren't competitive with countries like China. In turn, we can't sell products that are competitive with what they produce. If we could pay Joe Blow what he was actually worth to stack 2x4's then we would start to get somewhere but we can't thanks to unions driving up the rate of unskilled labour.

What is the difference between sending a few raw logs to people who can add more value to it than we can and sending them dimensional lumber and buying it back as furniture?

Nice to see someone intimately familiar with the industry chime in and post the real reasons for RLE. Good post, Buck!

The unionists on this board just don't understand the economics of RLE nor the industry as a whole. Without RLE, there would be no coastal forest industry in this province whatsoever.

[Hurtlander]

Please explain further, I'd especially like to know how RLE coming from the northern interior is helping out communities that have lost their mills due to an inadequate timber supply...

[Rwede]

RLEs are from the Coastal TSA, not the Northern Interior. Inadequate timber supply in the NI TSA is from mountain pine beetle, not from RLEs.

All timber exported has right of first refusal by BC mills. If the mills don't want it, then they can qualify for export.

Should a mill be forced to mill timber that it loses so much money on that it causes the mill to shut its doors permanently? Is that better for mill workers than having jobs?

[Hurtlander]

What your saying is mostly true, but I do know about second growth spruce fir mix coming down from the north west that I'm pretty sure isn't part of the coastal TSA, but it is bordering the coastal region, going right past a now closed mill that used to cut this type of wood. Anyhow it is sad that local producers are unable to compete with the Asians for biding on our standing timber.

[logicalview]

*removed*

[Buckeye19]

You might also want to check with the former mill workers in some of the interior communities who were gainfully employed until the timber supply dried up. They now get to watch loads of logs from other regions of the province go right through their towns on the way to the docks.

Did you miss the part about how RLE's actually support jobs that otherwise wouldn't be economically viable?

Do you think those logs just harvest themselves? Of course not. They employ foresters, loggers, engineers, truckers, machine operators etc. The list goes on and on. If the production cost to process these logs wasn't so high here in British Columbia (thanks again to, you guessed it - unions!) then of course mills would be more inclined to keep those logs here.