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Minister rejects call to take more timber
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by GORDON HOEKSTRA Citizen staff
B.C. Forests Minister Mike de Jong says he's not considering clawing back any more timber from major forest companies, a move suggested recently by a prominent Prince George secondary manufacturer.
The idea of taking back more timber from big forest companies and putting it on the open market was also raised Wednesday at the third annual B.C. Natural Resource Forum.
De Jong said the 20 per cent the province is already clawing back from major forest companies is already a big undertaking that must be done with minimum disruption.
In answer to a question at the forum, which continues today at the Civic Centre, de Jong said the clawback has caused concern not only to major forest companies, but logging contractors, who stand to lose harvesting amounts. "Managing that change in a responsible way and doing it to a level that didn't cause unnecessary dislocation, was part of what influenced the 20-per-cent figure," de Jong told the audience.
De Jong said the 20-per-cent figure was also arrived at because it would allow the province to put enough timber for auction to set market-based prices on the remaining timber harvest in the province.
Market-based timber pricing is being introduced on the Coast, but has stalled in the Interior because a glut of timber from the mountain pine beetle epidemic has put downward pressure on prices.
Logger Svend Serup told de Jong the province should clawback more timber from forest companies -- the Peel Commission suggested 50 per cent -- and put it up for auction to encourage new players in the forest sector.
Central Interior Logging Association manager Roy Nagel said it's true that loggers have concerns their contracts could be impacted by the 20-per-cent clawback, they're not necessarily opposed to more timber being put up for auction as long as they were properly compensated for their losses.
Earlier this month, Brink Forest Products owner John Brink warned if fundamental changes are not made in how the province allocates timber, perhaps going as far as putting all timber rights up for auction, northern B.C. is doomed to increasing job losses and fewer benefits from publicly-owned forests.
Brink told The Citizen a recent increase in corporate concentration has tipped the balance against community interests and opportunities for any kind of secondary manufacturing sector.
Brink is also advocating the provincial government insist that primary sawmills make 20 per cent of their lumber -- the amount he contends is low-grade -- available for remanufacturing in the region.
Brink says it could create thousands of jobs in the North.
The idea is similar to one floated by the then-NDP government in 1997 as part of the unsuccessful Jobs and Timber Accord, in which Interior forest companies were supposed to provide independent remanufacturers with 16 per cent of their lumber.
While de Jong said he thought lumber remanufacturers need a secure supply of their raw material, he's wary of stepping in to guarantee that supply. "This is fraught with problems, and the record of that approach is abysmal," said de Jong. "It doesn't lead to the kind of competitive market-based approach to forestry that we need in British Columbia."
©Copyright 2005 Prince George Citizen
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