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Counterpoint: Take our forests back

News that the local Catalyst Paper Corporation paper mill is facing potentially fatal anti-dumping duties courtesy of our trade “partner,” the United States, is discouraging.
Forests

News that the local Catalyst Paper Corporation paper mill is facing potentially fatal anti-dumping duties courtesy of our trade “partner,” the United States, is discouraging.

Dealing with a country that flouts the letter and spirit of trade agreements is never pleasant, but when that country is the most powerful in the world and believes it is above the law, it is extremely frustrating.

Canada signed the first free-trade deal with the United States in 1989, and NAFTA in 1993, precisely to rid ourselves of such arbitrary attacks on our exports. But it was not an agreement between equals. It was like signing a peace treaty with a schoolyard bully.

According to the mill, the duties will amount to $6 million per month. The final determination will be made in August when the duties could be overturned by the United States International Trade Commission, as those initially imposed on Bombardier were. If upheld, the duty can be appealed through chapter 19 of NAFTA.

The federal government has already filed a wide-ranging complaint with the World Trade Organization about the manner in which the United States applies punitive duties, but these challenges typically take a long time to be resolved.

The province has a role to play here, as well. The mill needs to lawyer up and the province has the resources and trade expertise to help it within its international trade division. Quebec’s government has played that role in similar circumstances.

In the longer term, the provincial government needs to revisit just how we do forestry in this province. We have an incredible resource yet over the last couple of decades and more we have been receiving fewer and fewer community benefits.

The explanation is not hard to find, according to the recent Restoring Forestry in BC study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA). The problem has been that we have gradually given up control of forest resources and forest policy to huge forest companies, a trend accelerated by the previous Liberal government.

The result has been a disaster. In the past 25 years large and medium-sized sawmills have declined by 47 per cent and pulp mills by 29 per cent. Employment has gone from 85,000 to 60,000.

A study commissioned by the Ontario government compared Ontario’s industry with other Canadian provinces. BC placed last in most categories. Perhaps the biggest failure was the tenure system and absence of open log markets. These would encourage local manufacturers to gain access to the right logs.

There are other models BC could adopt. While our forests have been in steady decline since 1950, in Sweden, because of scientific management of its resource, the standing stock has actually increased in that time by 69 per cent. That’s the difference between liquidation of the forests and local and regional management in the public interest.

The CCPA study by former forest minister Bob Williams is well worth a read. Its core recommendation is to decentralize and regionalize management of the forest resource to maintain the environment and sustainability while involving communities, including first nations, in planning, management and stewardship. The alternative is continued anxiety about the mill’s future and depressing sight of log booms passing us by taking jobs and wealth elsewhere.

It’s time to press the NDP/Green government to do the right thing.

Murray Dobbin is a Powell River freelance writer and social commentator.