Russia sees what B.C. doesn’t: Raw log exports cost forest industry jobs

Bob Matters, Vancouver Sun
After years of doom and gloom, some B.C. forest company executives have suddenly seen a light at the end of the tunnel, a light so bright they think they’re in heaven. What could possibly break their mood of doom and gloom?
Log exports.
And you say: “Are you kidding, Matters?

“We all know that log exports are the problem for the B.C. forest industry, not the solution. We all know that for two decades companies have refused to invest in new machinery, equipment and mills and let their mills run down. We all know that in the process they made coastal sawmills uncompetitive, inefficient and unsafe. We all know that log exports cost us jobs rather than creating them. Surely the answer can’t be log exports?”

You’re right, of course.

Coastal forest companies have relied on log exports for a decade. Especially for the big log export firms like TimberWest and Island Timberlands, it’s become their sole stock in trade since about the time Gordon Campbell became premier.

Western Forest Products, too, has joined in, prevailing on the ready-to-please Campbell government to change the rules so that it could also export more logs from its private lands. The public interest be damned, they say.

In fact, so much timber has been exported that TimberWest, in particular, now says it’s a real-estate agent, not a forest company. Having harvested at a drastic rate, it’s now ready to turn cutblocks into condos.

At the same time, B.C. has seen a dramatic fall in forest-sector employment because, despite government and industry claims to the contrary, log exports equal job losses.

It simply stands to reason: With fewer logs to process in B.C. sawmills and less wood for value-added plants, we have seen about 50 major wood-processing facilities close their doors for good on Campbell’s watch.

That’s why B.C. has lost more than 20,000 good-paying jobs since 2001. The value added in sawmills, wood processing plants and pulp and paper equals 3.3 times what we earn exporting logs, says BC Stats.

Lost jobs equals lost economic opportunities in resource-based towns, lost revenue and trips to Fort McMurray for folks from forest-based communities.

And while a trip to Fort McMurray might be Forest Minister Pat Bell’s solution to the crisis, for a lot of B.C.’s working families it’s a tragedy.

But now the heads of the big forest companies have their own solution — even more log exports.

They could make millions of dollars by filling the void left because Russia is now imposing a tax on its log exports.

Someone in Russia figured out there is a lot more potential jobs and profit in processing Russian timber in Russian sawmills and generating investment in Russian value-added plants. Instead of exporting those jobs to China, they’ll create jobs at home.

Ironically, in the U.S. Pacific Northwest companies went the opposite direction. After decades of log exports, in the face of the slump in the Japanese housing market of the late 1990s, they finally upgraded their sawmills, selling lumber domestically and even importing logs — from B.C.

The Russian and American model is very much like United Steelworkers’ 10-point plan for the B.C. forest industry, the sort of solution most folks in B.C. resource-based communities want.

And it’s exactly what the big log exporters and their government friends don’t want. They love log exports. They’ve made millions exporting logs.

Anything that gets in the way — even if it’s good for most of B.C.’s workers, communities and citizens — is something they’ll fight tooth and nail to stop.

It’s time for the rest of us to speak up — just like the Russians, it’s time we wised up, stopped log exports and went back to running those logs through our own mills.

Bob Matters is the chair of the United Steelworkers Wood Council.