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Foundation laid for Brink's future - Prince George Citizen
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Foundation laid for Brink's future. (P.G. Citizen - Sept 25/02)
New Building will either be warehouse or second finger-jointing lumber plant.
By GORDON HOEKSTRA
Citizen Staff
John Brink is laying foundations for a building on River Road he hopes will become his second finger-jointing lumber plant.
The new building on property bought last year across from his current operation, Brink Forest Products, could also end up as a warehouse with partitioned sections for lease.
Brink said Tuesday the final decision depends on several important criteria-lumber markets, sourcing raw materials, the softwood lumber dispute with U. S. and forest policy changes the B. C. Liberal government has promised to make.
"We are watching everything very carefully," said Brink. "But preferably I would like to see it as additional manufacturing capability."
Brink is already preparing to put on a second finger-jointing shift at his existing plant sometime in the first half of October to service the U. S. and Canadian markets.
That will add another 15 workers to the 65 already employed at the plant.
If Brink was to build a second plant, it would likely employ another 60 workers.
However, that would have to wait until there was some resolution to the softwood lumber dispute with the U. S.
Finger-jointed lumber - created by gluing small chunks of wood - is caught under the 27% duties on lumber exports to the U. S. At the very least, Brink hopes the duties on finger-jointed lumber would be applied to the raw material and not the finished product.
Brink would also like to see the B. C. government push forward on its promised forest policy changes meant to increase the flow of wood among companies. Those changes include the creation of a market-based timber pricing system, and severing the tie between logging timber and milling it in a particular area.
Brink believes that will allow the right log to get to the fight mill, and allow independent secondary manufacturers access to wood and create more relationships with primary manufacturers.
"In the short-term there's a challenge for all of us, but in the medium to long term, I'm very, very much of an optimist," he said. "I'm convinced forest policy changes will happen, and they will be the right ones that will set actions in motion to push the industry into the right direction. I believe it will be good for the industry, province and region."
B. C. Forest Minister Mike de Jong has said he wants a package of forest policy changes put together by this fall.
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