BC Forest Minister Pat Bell said the province needs a direct sailing to China from either Prince Rupert or Vancouver to really meet the needs of that market for BC softwood lumber.
Bye bye America, it was a great pleasure to do business with you.
NOT.
This is marginally better than being 100% dependant on the US and the blood sucking Free Trade and Software Lumber agreements that give a customer of our products the right to dictate sovereign issues to us.
I recently spoke with a small business man down south that has had to close his business employing 6 skilled craftspeople because he was unable to get a steady supply of two containers of high grade white spruce per annum. Apparently the lumber brokers would fill chinese orders for mega numbers of containers… guaranteeing a certain quality but the same guarantee was not available for a local manufacturer. According to his story which I’ll admit may be self serving… he went through virtually all levels of the provincial government to no avail. Whatever the validity of his claims, its time that Pat Bell and his cronies paid more attention to adding value to our raw materials rather than shipping raw logs out of the province.
Shipping raw materials is a short term fix to serious economic issues that befell the North when Skeena was finally broken up. It’s not a longer term way to build healthy communities with strong economies.