THE WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER SEPTEMBER, 1971 T GIANTS — "HOW YOU SUBSIDIZE THE FORES By BOB WILLIAMS Vancouver East NDP-MLA The Party’s Forest Policy Critic The “Good Life” in Social Credit Brit- ish Columbia means that you pay more for your beer so that the forest industry giants can pay less for their timber. The simple fact is that the Bennett government nets more revenue from liq- uor sales each year than it does from the forest industry in the form of royalties and logging taxes. This is all part of the game that Ben- nett plays with ruthless intensity—squeez- ing the little guy. In B.C. half the economy is based on the forest industry but the revenue direct- ly obtained from the forest industry in the form of royalties and logging taxes totals only seven per cent of: the provincial budget. Of that seven per cent, or $70 million, 30 per cent is used simply to pay for the cost of the forest service. That leaves $40 million — four per cent of the provincial budget — as a net revenue for the treasury. Some might consider that a reason- able return. That’s if you ignore the fact that we, the public, own the trees. In B.C. though, 95 per cent of the forests are pub- licly-owned. The low returns we get makes the government of B.C. the most generous landlord in history. You just have to compare that $40 million net return with the $60 million the government gets from liquor sales alone each year to see where Bennett’s priori- ties are. Soak the little guy and go easy on the corporations. One of the important rip-offs in B.C.’s forest industry is in the form of tree farm licenses. Under this form of tenure the public’s forests are traded either in per- petuity or for 21 years to major compan- ies that simply agree to manage them on a sustained yield basis. That is, they agree to cut no more trees than are grown in any given year. In exchange for this difficult management role (which could be carried out by any trained forester), we trade off empires at the price of a penny an acre a year. We’ve done that to date with 20 million acres — the equiva- lent of 16 Prince Edward Islands. At this price it costs the forest giants $10,000 an- nually for a million acres. It is the equiva- lent of renting Vancouver’s Stanley Park for $10 a year. The largest tree farm in the province, Skeena Kraft, is one case where we grant- ed timber rights to the company for a cent an acre a year. We allowed them to de- duct their road building in the stumpage for mula which they pay when they cut down the trees. In the case of the Skeena tree farm licence the question was asked on the order paper during the past Session: “What total figure for road cost has been entered on the road ledger since the in- ception of the licence and what is the latest credit figure available?’ The an- swer from the Minister was that the total figure for road costs within the licence area was $12,066,503 since the licence was granted and the credit figure remain- ing as of December 31, 1969, was $4,- 287,570. This one licence which was »anded out to Skeena Kraft is the size of ; wie 3 BOB WILLIAMS PROBES THE B.C. TIMBER RIP-OFF five Prince Edward Islands but they have credits with the public of B.C. to the tune of $4,287,570! They don’t owe us; we owe them. The direct economic returns to the province from the industry are meagre to say the least, so one would expect that the benefits were there in the form of better management and reforestation, but such is not the case. The record in re- forestation is nothing short of scandalous. The question of reforestation was cov- ered thoroughly by the Vancouver Sun in.a series last fall. The journalist pointed out that “for every acre of new trees planted by government and _ industry, seven acres are being cut down.” As a result of that there is a massive backlog of replanting necessary. The forest serv- ice says that there are 9.3 million acres of forest land that are not satisfactorily restocked. Professor J. H. Smith of the UBC For- estry Faculty has put it another way, he says ‘enough wood to build 4% houses every minute throughout the year is being wasted annually in B.C.” That means 6,000 houses a day are going down the tube as a result of mismanagement. Smith says the elimination of waste could triple the harvest of 1.5 billion cubic feet and that intensive management could double this again. Smith notes that Sweden which has only about 40 per cent of the good forest land that British Columbia has, has an annual cut that exceeds our own. It should also be noted that Finland, which has even less forest land than Sweden, is equalling the production of Sweden and still maintaining a sustained yield program as a result of intensive reforesta- tion, fertilization and drainage programs. In only two cases in the province has there been bidding for pulp harvesting rights. One of the two was at Skookum- chuck in the East Kootenays. In the case ~ of the Skookumchuck mill there was in- tensive bidding—to the point that a bonus payment of $7.3 million was offered. One would ordinarily expect the resources minister to be overjoyed at the prospect of added millions in the public purse. But we have no ordinary minister in B.C. : At the time the minister said: “I put it to you gentlemen, on behalf of the in- dustry as a whole, in light of the compe- tition and appraisal that’s existing, that | don’t think the bidding is realistic.’ His first concern was for “the industry as a whole!’ He also pointed out that “‘it is the most difficult pulp project in the province and they were bidding on the lowest grade wood.” He then refused all bids and returned the $700,000 deposited by the companies involved. What the minister is saying was that this was one of the poorer wood areas in the province and yet he was get- ting bonus bids to the tune of $7 million —and the companies indicated they were prepared to go higher. It was one of the few places in the province where arrange- ments hadn’t been made. British Columbia doesn’t have just one mill though, it has over 20. If a $7 million bonus was going to be paid in a poor wood area — how much of a bonus would have been paid where there was better timber? Clearly the province has lost hundreds of millions of dollars because there has been no bidding for pulp wood. All this makes Mr. Williston the most ex- pensive Cabinet Minister in the history of British Columbia.