We should have put a export tax on power sales to the USA, equal to the punative duty on lumber.

We must cut our ties with America and go our own way.

A most excellent article, Ben Parfitt!
The summation of it is that Harper and Emerson srewed us on this softwood deal. Not only did they cost the taxpayers more than a billion of our hard earned forestry dollars, the Cons put nearly half of this money (454 million) into Republican hands. We got screwed, folks, no doubt about it, and all for Harper & Emerson greed.

This is no accident. One of Emersons directorships for being a Liberal crook in this province was from Teresen, for Emerson's part in the sale of BC gas to Teresen... which ended up owned by Morgan Kindle... which ended up being bought out and is now privately owned by Goldman Sach's and 4 other firms, of which lion share is owned by Carlyle.

Anyone remember Carlyle? Its the GWBush senior and junior nest egg. Once again, this deal did not go down the way it did by accident. Harper has been in thick with the Republican party since joining the NCC, and Emerson has been corrupt for decades in BC, coming into the Harper and Republican fold before the Martin regime ended.

Harper and Emerson are quite simply, CROOKS!!! They need a whole lot more than just being merely voted out of office. Hand cuffs behind bars and a good old fashioned shit kicking once inside is a tenth of what these traitorous sellout pigs deserve.

Beware the notion of elite incompetence.

No they're not.

Right.

Simple fact is, we depend on the revenues from resource exports to finance our lifestyle. We ARE "hewers of wood, drawers of water". We've exported raw logs into US, and even if their economy grinds to a halt, we will either continue to export raw logs, which in turn will be re-shipped to China....or we will ship to China. In either case, we are forced to dance to the importers tune. That is what China was telling Harper recently. China is simply putting Canada in it's place.

The ONLY way out of this conundrum is to take over ownership of our own resources. That is to say, NONE of it can be owned by private interests. Only the value-added can enter the marketplace.

Makes me nervous when I agree with all the posters and the original article.

Somebody give me something to chew here.
Maybe I should check out my neighbour: "Island Timberland"

No they pulled up stakes and turned into "BrasCan" last time I looked. What on earth are "Carlyle" and "Brascan" doing with the properties they have recently clearcut?
My suspicion is:
Selling it to each other and making a profit on each (fantacy) transaction.
Now this does not create any jobs nor does it preserve any resourses - it simply makes
Money

Apparently if you have enough of the "Money" stuff you can purchase a politician (or a whole political party as we see in B.C.)

Then you can carry on making more "Money"

I wonder what would have happened if the BC NDP would have still been in?

Likely not much, and non partisan speaking.

As Fiat Lux/Ed often discusses and shares his wisdom,insight and experience, one thing he talks about is over-capitalization. I read into this as so much investment in labour saving technology...stories about mills so efficient that by the time a logging trick drops off its load at the log yard and leaves the gate the equivalent of the load has been fully processed.

So what is the solution, to limit capitalization ? Fix and allocate numbers ? "X" town has "Y" jobs ? Then where do we stop and at what industry ?

We have gone to the BC interior since the early 1970's and seen the transition...the small mills close. I know a contractor who logs in the winter, and the bidding process for certain cuts , which one can see on the forestry office walls. That option existed if not still exists. Also, according to him and others, the BC forestry regs are their own internal "taxing" issue.

One of his logging competitors has a mini mill
and produces rough cut lumber...probably more of a subsistence business than getting rich. He doesn't have much small scale competition.

The Lumber industry is one of the more volatile there is...how many old mills have we seen close down along the Fraser River in the last 20 - 25 years ? I think its a far bigger picture, hence problem than simply Softwood Lumber Agreements etc. Beating on that horse defelects attention on what we can and may have control over.

Getting rid of the 5th columnist Clark may have gotten the NDP back more to it's "roots"........not to mention the O&G windfall would have allowed them the option of putting some brakes to wholesale raw log exports.

Ah, what if, what if...........

As a professional woodworker at the manufacturing end, I've been advocating this for 50 years, here in BC.

We had the makings of an excellent woodworkig industry The FTA, NAFTA and the WTO have ruined whatever chances we had to build up our own manufacturing. Which was the purpose of these treaties to begin with: Ruin the industrial base and force people to buy from the sale of resources, which is the selling of capital, but kacks up the GDP.

Another purpose is the depopulation of rural areas and force everybody into cities, again so they have to buy everything from the middlemen and jack up the GDP even more. The Interior is losing people by the thousands and with the GATS, even loggers will be kicked out and replaced by imported slave labour.

Now we have wood products imported from China, Sweden, etc.

As long as we stay in and accept these criminal treaties, there's no hope for any improvements. The article doesn't mention that under the NAFTA and the WTO we can no longer reduce, or stop raw log exports. The Campbell gang knows this very well, so they keep on increasing the exports.

Ed Deak.

There's the "Horse" yet again.
Jungian "Archotype" or what

Once you get enough of this "money" in your "EFT" based account you can use it to "purchase" some of the coveted "Real" estate from BrasCan or whoever you choose.
Then you (this seems to be required by most building inspection) hire an architect to make a wooden monument to Balal and go golfing or fishing.

I saw a bumper sticker that said "Ban Raw Log Exports." A good start, but better yet with lengthy jail terms for the traitors who allowed this export to happen. These scoundrels have to be held accountable for their actions...

Well, the only solutions , given the status quo, is perhaps quasi- co-ops get created and the little guys and little communities band together and outbid etc. the bigger companies, and re- patriate both the resource and its processing locally.

Other curveball would be to pull out the Land Claims issue and work with the First Nations to acquire the resource...and again repatriate it locally. Example : The First Nation's have a mill in Shuswap area, near the Canoe mill.

Maybe someone can comment on this interaction with First Nations claims and international and intra- national legislation .

Also, I heard that First Nations have passport cards that designate them as " North American" citizens, the borders don't necessarily apply to them ...maybe that would be useful to explore further.

If there's a will there's a way, back to my own "pet" rant to think outside the box.

Ummmm, since they are by far away our largest trading partner, that might cause some hardship.

I think this matter is further complicated by our high cost of labour relative to other jurisdictions: what can we build in BC from our wood that cannot be built far less expensively elsewhere?

In Fort Nelson they thought to add value by building a chopstick factory. This ill-fated venture did not last long, as chopsticks (surprise, surprise) are less expensive to produce elsewhere.

In the early '70s, I realized that my largest "trading partner", bigger than all the other stores and my private customers put together, the home decorating and contract departments of Woodward stores, were trying to put the squeeze on and give me the royal screw.

So, I sent the same letter to all my commercial and private customers that from then on everybody will get the same prices, no more preferential treatment and wholesale prices to anybody.

The screams were loud and clear, predicting that I was going to be ruined etc. Within a few weeks they all were back on track with everything, because they needed my work more than I needed their orders and I had to expand into premises 3 times the old size and workforce.

In short, do a good work and treat your customers the best you can and business will come.

Having a "largest" trading partner is like putting all your eggs into one basket, and an economic suicide anyway, our warped economists should warn against. To hell with them and the largest "trading partner", who's already giving us the royal screw and is using its worthless money to buy up our country before our goverments wake up.

Ed Deak.

This is about the umpteen thousandth story of this type I've read in the last few years. Everybody howls 'crooks!', and it seems to be a fairly well substantiated conclusion. Kevin Potvin's article in The Republic of East Vancouver is a perfect example.

http://republic-news.org/archive/113-repub/113_potvin_media.htm

But all these articles and all these outraged posts skip one vital step.

Evidence.

There are so many rumours; so many suspicious circumstances; so many deals like this one that is so bad for the province and so absolutely unlikely to have the advertized effect on the economy of the world. So many lies being told that there must, surely to God mustm, be evidence somewhere of criminal misdeeds that could be exposed.

If these guys aren't exposed, if the true reasons can't be established and documented properly, brought into the light, into the courts both of law and public awareness, then we're stuck with it.

Our children and their children will live in slums and drool over the leavings from the Billionaire's tables like the poor in Dicken's stories about the worst unregulated period in the history of industrial Capitalism.

Somebody, please. Leak a document or six you're not supposed to have copied. Write a story your boss has forbidden you to write, and find a way to get it out. Come forward and tell what you know.

Please.

Steve... wages must reflect local monetary conditions. 40 years ago we could feed our family of 5 for $25. a week and we bought a bungalow in Vancouver for $6,000.

If conditions and prices were still the same, people could get the same wages as then. As it is, prices in the stores are going up every day, without any other reason, but to give bigger profits to the corporations, or else their stocks will crash. That bungalow would now be $.5 million.

In any case, this is a perfect example of monetary costs not representing anything else, but artificially induced, temporary perceptions.

Money is not a reality, but an imaginary concept, therefore economic calculations
can not be based on monetary figures.

"Canadian workers priced themselves out of the market" was the battlecry of Weenie Manning and his neocon imbeciles, wanting to bring on what his disciple, Harpie is doing now, a fascist economy dictated by a sacred, predestined ruling class.

Ed Deak.

Ansrcho:

My God, Man! Do you realise what you are saying??!! Holding politicians accountable????!!! Why, the Lege would MT in a minute! Put the "rats leaving a sinking ship" analogy to shame...........

Oh, there's evidence, Bailey. The paper trail is there. The problem is that when the sheriff is crooked, the lawbreakers go free and in these circumstances, the lawbreakers are the law makers.

Take Emerson for an example. Emerson was behind the sale of BC gas to Teresen and got a directorship from Teresen for his role in privatizing this crown corp. What follows is the issuance of shares towards directors for a "job well done". BC's code of ethics is horribly lax. If this happened on a federal level or in most other provinces, he would have lost his job in disgrace and risked charges depending on the extremes of the situation. As it was, this example is extreme. But legal. Only in BC.

And this isn't an isolated incident with Emerson. His becoming a CEO of Great Western Bank after holding the position of deputy treasurer of BC as another example. Only a handful of government officials could have exploited his intel on provincial banks in this country concerning balance sheets and weak management. David Emerson exploited it. His role as CEO of Canfor is another example, spun off by his gov intel and influence as the chairman of the council of chief executives.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Emerson

Fact is, Bailey, that Emerson has been selling off government intel AND assets to private corps for dough by way of directorships. To say that he isn't after reading this link alone, is to not know how politicians steal and slide through the loop holes of the system.

Mulroney's 24 directorships and airbus? The paper trail is there. Softwood lumber deal? The paper trail is there. And like I say, when the law makers turn into law breakers, they are invincible until they are thrown out of office. And until honest lawmakers come into power, nothing will change. Evidence? Don't you read the paper? The paper trail is there.

The brain,
Did you read the article from the Republic? That's the kind of evidence that Bailey's looking for. Somehow or other the fact that the purchase price of a certain railway operation amounted to a saw-off for the purchasing party is at the bottom of a transaction that worked to one party's advantage and perhaps to the advantage of certain other unnamed individuals. It’s that kind of evidence Bailey wants.

If you could buy an asset and get all, and perhaps more that the total purchase price back from future tax savings on your consolidated businesses it would be a pretty good deal wouldn't it? If you were the only party that happened to get a certain package of corporate information when you were doing your due diligence prior to the bid closing it would give you a big advantage, wouldn't it? Might not even have to do much arm-twisting at the bank either.

I think clear evidence of something like that is what Bailey's talking about - not just directorships.

Looks like we got 'em with their pants down.

To "Capitalze" on our good fortune I'm thinking we should:
1) Get rid of Harper by supporting the Federal Libs no matter what other concerns we have
2) Get rid of the Socred derivative that now governs in BC as "Liberal"
3) attempt to deal with our resourses (and problems) in a "made in Canada" process

Dear Brain; You're right, of course. Your well documented history of the career of Mr. Emerson clearly shows a cycnicism of process reminiscent of Capone's Chicago.

Mr. Parfitt's excellent article above here beautifully exposes a policy stream so bad for the country and so absolutely unlikely to have the advertized effect on the economy of the world that the only explanations that come to mind are appeasement of superiour military threat or, well, treason seems to be the word coming into play. Betrayal of principles that have informed western civilization from the beginning.

But what we really need are charges that can be laid.

I know this is made difficult by the fact that the ones we suspect are legislators, who changed the laws prohibiting the crimes they were about to commit.

Even a valiant opposition of two couldn't be expected to prevail against such odds, and now that the odds are better, valiant is no longer a word one thinks of.

Mr. Potvin's premise that the press is meant to be the true opposition whoever is in power, just points to the deregulation by legislators, and gives some sense of how long they've been working on this, and ditto the weakening of oversight mechanisms, like auditors and ombudsmen and watchdogs. All true and verifiable and outrageous.

But what we really need are charges that can be laid.

In public. Then when they're renamed 'John Does 1, 2, 3, 4', that will just be so much more evidence that everybody can see.

Thank you Fiat Lux!
It is strange that such advice is needed, but unfortunately most business in this country operate under the illusion that advertizing is all that they need to worry about.

Yes, at the moment we are indeed the hewers of wood and drawers of water, but only our own stupidity makes it so!

We worry about how fast we can deplete our rescources to please "the market", when we could as easily do like OPEC and restrict how much of our rescources we wish to let go on the open market!

Our stupid politicians have sold us out; when will the voters rebel?

Anyone have any idea how many communications professionals, of one kind or another, now serve the Campbell government - all of them in their jobs by virtue of Order(s) in Council?

Anyone have any idea how much Mr Campbell's Chief of Staff gets as salary? He's also an order in council appointment....and just one of a very long list.

I'm working on it GWest
Connections are good . Not sure how good mine are but we will see

doggone, I'll give you a tiny hint, you can find Martyn Brown's salary in Order in Council No 589, Approved and Ordered July 21, 2006.

He is, at least I think so, very well paid.

A little better paid than a laid-off mill worker.

Is this a serious question? Here's a quote from Kevin Potvin about Campbell's cheif of staff.

Bailey,
See OIC # 589 - July 21, 2006 for all the details..non of which are 'normal' public service appointments.

You have to cross-reference between the OIC cited above and this:
http://www.dir.gov.bc.ca/gtds.cgi?show=Branch&organizationCode=PREM&organizationalUnitCode=EXEC
to determine who the OIC appointments are.

But, even that won't give you the complete picture.

More on this later.

Hah, Hah, Hah
So the Bonehead: Campbell, has Identified Daufinie's profession but is still negotiating the final cost.
Scroll^ what's the topic?
Oh yeah, Value added on Campbell's timber.
That simply will not do! Adding value when Gordon has already figured out exactly how much he can take. Yanks get uppity, BrasCan and Canfor have to hire a bunch of CGAs to figure out how much they might win or lose if "what's her name" takes Gord for a ride.

and if we really want to talk about how the BC elite have manipulated the raw log export situation to their ultimate benefit, just think about Jimmy Pattison, who now owns majority shares in Canfor, that owns licences covering a sizeable percentage of BC's Interior timber land, and also owns Roberts Bank "coal port". The last time I flew over it, half of the terminal was converted to container traffic (incoming Save-On goodies from China, cars from Asia, outgoing whatevers etc). If our junk-grade coal takes a dive in market value, Jimmy can switch to log export in a big way with this port. He probably owns the railway too, but some things are harder to determine about this former socred car salesman, hero of Expo, no doubt a frontrunner in the Olympics of Gluttony to come.