PRESIDENT’S MESSAG

Softwood agreement
unfair to Canadians

by Dave Haggard

Phe softwood lumber quota agreement
; between Canada and the United States
is costing us jobs. I.W.A. members lose
their livlihoods when mills close or have
to take down time when they don’t have
US. export quota.

is December several companies will have
extended Christmas shutdowns because of this.
Despite over 11 years of so-called “free trade”
agreements, most Canadian lumber producers
still don’t have complete tariff-free access to the
U.S. market. .

These restrictions have been particularly hard
on British Columbia’s Coast region where
sawmills that don’t have quota can’t ship to the
U.S. unless they pay punitive tariffs. Some com-
panies can’t get their hands on tariff-free quota
and many of our mills in the Interior also face pro-~
duction curtailments when their quota runs out.

We say that the quota agreement should be
allowed to expire in 2001 and that Canadian
stakeholders should get their act together to fight
for improved access to the U.S. market.

The possible permanent closure of the J.S.
Jones sawmill in Boston Bar, is a prime example
of what’s wrong with the quota agreement. It is a
modern, viable mill — one that can compete with
similar producers south of the border — but it
can’t ship lumber to the United States, largely

because it lacks
quota. Ifthe mill goes
down, it will likely be
the death of Boston
Bar.

Jones can’t get its
hands on existing
quota which is con-
trolled by quota-
holders who most
benefit from the
agreement. The foxes
are guarding the
chicken coop and
they won’t let the
other foxes get a
taste.

The SLA has cre-
ated quota haves and

uota have nots.

ven the quota haves
are not free from cur-
tailments and clo-
sures. It also treats
different regions and different wood products dif-
ferently, thus creating unfairness between Cana-
dian producers. Other tariff reclassifications by
the U.S. Customs Department, (including those
on pre-drilled studs and rougher header fascia)
have caused further production shutdowns and
job losses for our members. ;

Although we can’t get rid of the SLA for
another 15 months, we have to set the stage for
what might happen next. We have to get our-
selves organized to take on the protectionist U.S.
Coalition for Fair Lumber Prices, which is the
driving force behind the quota agreement.

In mid-December we appeared before Douglas
Waddell, one of the head honchos at the mission
of the Canadian embassy in Washington, to let
the Canadian government and the industry know
that we are cautiously optimistic that we are

well-positioned to deal
with any potential coun-
fo eee duty action
the Coalition might
bring against Canada.

We told Waddell that
there have been large
changes over the past
five years and that a
countervailing duty
would be unlikely to
take place immediatel;
if it occurs at all.
Stumpage and other
costs in B.C. have
sharply risen since the
last countervailing duty
was launched seven
years ago and that takes
away a big part of an
argument that our
fata is subsidized.

We've got some impor-
tant players lining up on
our side of the issue. In the U.S. large lumber
buyers like the National Association of Home
Builders and Home Depot are aggressively sup-
porting the free flow of lumber into the United
States.

Now it’s time for the Canadian industry to get
offits butt and go out there to argue for freer and
fair trade in lumber. After all, they are the ones
who supported “free trade” and workers are the
ones who have made them more than competi-
tive.

And we told Waddell, there also has to be a
clearly defined Canadian commitment to freer
and fair trade. We have to turn up the heat on
the Coalition and work with American customers
to battle against protectionist forces that punish
our industry and our members.

LANDS AND FORES

Endangered species
plan an improvement

by Kim Pollock

don’t think that the federal government
very often gets it right when it comes to
designing environmental action. And I
don’t think they got it right with the
recently-released endangered species plan.
But, with one very significant exception,
they have come remarkably close.

Close because a number of the key elements our
union has pushed for since the beginning are
finally there.

The government’s disastrous Bill C-65 finally
crashed under the combined weight of a coalition
of communities, industry, agricultural groups,
resource-users and I.W.A. CANADA. That bill,
you'll recall, had none of the safeguards needed to
protect workers and communities such as:°

¢ assurances that workers and communities
could participate with other stakeholder repre-
sentatives in framing a species recovery plan;

° requirements that social and economic
impacts have to be considered in the recovery plan;

e provisions to ensure that green extreme
groups would not enjoy unlimited access to the
courts as a means to tie up and stop economic activ-
ity;

e financial compensation to workers and com-
munities whose livelihood is disrupted by a species
recovery plan.

Well, it’s almost all there in this plan.

But it’s a big “almost,” because apparently miss-
ing in my quick read of the plan, released two
weeks before Christmas Eve, is compensation.

The government has gone as far as conceding
that species protection and their habitats “directly
affects the lives of rural Canadians as the primary
landowners and land users where these species are
found” and committing to a “fair and balanced
approach” that involves stakeholders in the
process.

Further, the feds now agree that “protecting
species is everybody’s responsibility and nobody
should be asked to bear an unfair part of the load.”

We should be clear that this is light years ahead
of where Bill C-65 was taking us.

But the plan, which has not yet been written into
the legal language of an actual bill, stops short of
offering compensation, “redress,” “financial assis-

tance” or other meaningful help to workers and

communities who might
be impacted by a species
recovery plan. The far-
thest it goes is to indicate
that “compensation
should ensure fairness so
that particular individu-
als do not have to bear the
costs associated with a
public good” and that this
“compensation may take
| various forms, such as
land swaps or assistance
in changing to alternative
land uses or land man-

agement practices.”

That all sounds like compensation for the own-
ers of land, perhaps tenure holders, but not work-
ers or communities. And that’s just not enough.

Now, I’m not saying that this plan is not better

than C-65. I’m not even saying that there will nec-
essarily be impacts that

It would likely have spawned creative measures,
such as so-called variable-retention timber har-
vesting, to combine owl habitat and timber har-
vesting, on at least a portion of the millions ofacres
of federal forest land taken out of production.

It would have eased at least some of the hard-
ship, at least of the woods andustey, workers who
lost their jobs and homes because the U.S. Endan-

gered Species Act required no protection for work-
ers.

Now, after its dismal first attempt with C-65, the
Canadian federal government is moving toward
providing that kind of protection. These are things
that we fought for or supneried from the start of
the discussions of a federal bill, through the awful
days of Bill C-65 and through this whole second
round of discussions:

e The plan outlined by environment minister
David Anderson agrees that species protection
needs to be based on stewardship and incentives,
not restrictions on land use or prohibitions.
¢ Workers and other

result from the protection.
of species and their habi-
tat in a situation where
there are many “checks
and balances” as appear
to be built into this plan.
But ultimately we just
have to look to the U.S.
Pacific Northwest to
know what might poten-
tially happen when
sweeping measures are
imposed to protect a

The door is finally open
to some form of
compensation for workers
and communities who are
denied the ability to make
a living on the land.

affected stakeholders
could be involved at
both stages in the pro-
posed two-part recovery

lanning process —

oth the information
gathering and the
species planning pro-
cess.

e A species action
plan would need to con-
sider, among other
things, “the estimated

species.

There, with the injunctions and subsequent legal
plans that protected the northern spotted owl, the
best: estimate — by University of Washington soci-
ologist Robert Lee — puts the ultimate job impact
at 28,000. And even that harsh figure underesti-
mates the impact on a handful of especially forest-
dependent communities, where the 1993 U.S. For-
est Ecosystem Management report notes that those
statistics mask the hardship that individuals and
communities will be confronted with inthe years
ahead because of the injunctions already in force.
Many more job losses would be coming says the
report.

Indeed, with that kind of devastation to workers
and their workplace, no amount of “compensation”
would ever undo the damage. But just the simple
application of “price tag” would almost certainly
reduce the appetite, if not of the most habitat-rav-
enous greens, at least of budget-conscious politi-
cians and bureaucrats.

It would likely have speeded up development of
the science that proved that owls need much less
habitat to survive than environmentalists first

claimed.

cost” and the “socio-eco-
nomic implications” of species recovery. .

° Federal government support would be avail-
able to those involved in recovery planning and
implementation. z

¢ Planimplementation studies would determine
whether, as time passes, the plan is still necessary.

The door is finally open, at least, to some form
of compensation for workers and communities who
are denied the ability to make a living on the land.

It’s a door we need to kick a little wider open. It’s
important now that we're not forgotten when reg-"
ulations are written to create the mropases federal
stewardship fund and proposed compensation
fund. We need lobby our local governments; our
local Members of Parliament and any federal Cab-
inet ministers we can. ?

This plan is not perfect — I'm quite sure I could
wind up embarrassed that I was ever this close to
saying it’s OK. But right now we've come so far
from C-65 that I can’t help but be pleased — and
amazed.

Public Policy for I.W.A. CANADA.

Kim Pollock is the Director of Environment and |

4/LUMBERWORKER/DECEMBER, 1999