"We will have to deal with it, and rebuild export markets."
Message 16732790
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"The council has been working on developing the Chinese lumber market, which MacDonald said has limitless potential.
"The Chinese market, if they hit 15 million homes, if you command a very small percentage of the marketplace . . . it very quickly gets equal to our share of the U.S. market," he said."
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B.C. forest workers warn of softwood sellout, Pettigrew cheers WTO review
Updated: Wed, Dec 05 6:39 PM EST
VICTORIA (CP) - Forest workers from British Columbia warned Wednesday they will not accept a softwood lumber agreement with the United States that sacrifices their jobs.
More than 300 forest workers, many unemployed and carrying placards, gathered outside the B.C. legislature to tell the government their futures are at stake in any softwood deal. "When you go to the table, you better be thinking about us and you better not come back to B.C. and tell us, 'Oh God, we had to do this. We had to sell out the province to get a deal for Weyerhaeuser,"' said Jim Sinclair, B.C. Federation of Labour president.
American-owned Weyerhaeuser is the largest forest company in B.C., employing thousands in its lumber and pulp mills.
Union leaders and forest community mayors said a softwood deal that allows the United States to process raw B.C. timber in American mills will kill British Columbia's forest industry.
Upwards of 13,000 B.C. forest-industry workers, most of them on the B.C. coast, have been laid off because of the combined impact of punishing U.S. softwood duties and a slump in the lumber business.
Analysts believe the figure could hit 30,000 before any agreement is reached to end the dispute. British Columbia accounts for about half of Canadian softwood exports.
"We are the backbone of the economy of the province of British Columbia and nobody seems to understand that," said IWA-Canada president Dave Haggard, leader of the largest forest union in British Columbia.
Doug Muir, Pulp, Paper and Woodworkers of Canada union president, said raw logs are leaving the province for the U.S. market in greater numbers, threatening B.C. jobs.
"You've got to get in front of that gate of that plant if you're not working," he told the protesters. "Let them know you're not happy."
But a forest industry leader offered a starkly contrasting view Wednesday.
"The softwood lumber issues, I believe, are in hand," Ron MacDonald, president of the B.C. Council of Forest Industries, told the Vancouver Board of Trade.
"I think have been handled quite properly with the leadership that's been shown by the provincial government."
MacDonald said the B.C. forest industry is also leading the way to a resolution in the softwood dispute by putting forward long-term solutions.
He predicted the industry will increase jobs and revenue in British Columbia.
"We believe at some future point that you could see a sustainable annual harvest of probably 90 million to 92 million cubic metres," said MacDonald, comparing it with the current annual cut of 73.3 million cubic metres.
"When you get to that point there's 80,000 new jobs attached to that."
The council has been working on developing the Chinese lumber market, which MacDonald said has limitless potential.
"The Chinese market, if they hit 15 million homes, if you command a very small percentage of the marketplace . . . it very quickly gets equal to our share of the U.S. market," he said.
Meanwhile, Pierre Pettigrew, international trade minister, applauded a World Trade Organization decision Wednesday to establish a panel to review the 19.3 per cent U.S. duty on Canadian softwood lumber.
"We are taking measures to protect the rights of our industry," Pettigrew said.
"The duty is unfair and unwarranted, and while we hope to resolve this issue through negotiations, we are also continuing to pursue the legal options available to us at the WTO."
The U.S. Commerce Department imposed the provisional countervailing against Canadian softwood lumber exports last August after renewed complaints from U.S. producers that Canadian wood was subsidized. Recently, the Americans added a 13 per cent provisional anti-dumping duty.
Canada exported $10 billion worth of softwood to the United States last year.
American producers say Canadian softwood exports are subsidized through low provincial stumpage fees - the royalty charged for logging Crown timber.
MP John Duncan, Alliance international trade critic, said the federal Liberals must ensure Canada does not jump at any settlement offer before having a fair and firm say at the softwood negotiating table.
"We can't have a deal at any cost and it is unlikely to be a good deal in December if the U.S. will only be submitting its first proposals on Dec. 12," he said.
B.C. Forests Minister Mike de Jong said Canada will not cave in at the negotiating table.
"We're not succumbing to the short-term temptation of a Band-Aid solution with the Americans," he said. "The idea is to create a brighter future for families, workers and forest-dependent communities."
Premier Gordon Campbell said British Columbia is working hard to ensure long-term and secure access to the American market.
Forest worker Herman Hanson said Wednesday's protest was necessary because it reminds politicians and the public about the contribution forest workers make to the B.C. economy.
"If woodworkers lose their jobs, there's nobody spending any money in local communities," said Hanson, who works at a mill near Vancouver that recently laid off 300 people.
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