Yes, everyone, I know 9/11 doesn’t have anything to do with the tarrif. Like I said, it’s not really a rational response, just an emotional one. There has been some resentment expressed among my poorer friends about sending money to the richest nation in the world, while we do without. Not a very nice sentiment, but everyone is entitled to their opinion. You know what? My best friend is an American. She lives in Washington State. She came here in 1978, married a Canadian and lived here until '99. When they broke up, I went all the way to Spokane with her to help get her settled back in with her family. Since she is the closest thing I will ever have to a sister, I can consider at least one American family. Heck, yes, I will help out the USA. I guess I’m just tired of being broke, tired of my friends being broke and looking for a whipping post.
Oh, and about Dubya? I’m going to be generous and just assume the guy totally zoned. At least he tried to straighten it out.
Nonsense. The Crown charges stumpage fees and makes a profit on it. I have never come across a subsidy. The fundamental difference between the two nations is that in the USA land use is more expensive because there is far less land and are far more people. Land in Canada is cheap. For the most part, there are few if any people, and no owners yet. Thus most land is Crown land, simply sitting there unused except for logging, mining, and the occasional wilderness camp. The land use costs are therefore low, and are reflected in the stumpage fees. The Crown certainly does not set stumpage rates at a loss.
Nonsense. The timber companies put forth harvesting plans which the Crown approves or restricts. I have never come across the Crown forcing a company to cut when the company does not want to. The only thing which limits the amount of production is the Crown. If the Crown did not limit production, and chose instead to let the market rule, then the USA timber industry would be winked out in short order. As it is, production is limited so as to ensure continual crop rotation, rather than over-harvesting.
You are missing the most essential point. Canada is a huge country, with a huge amount of timber and almost no conflicting uses competing for the land use. The USA does not have similar resources, but does have a huge market. You simply can not compete on a high volume, low cost basis.
Let’s put this in a perspective which can be comprehended. I am a two day’s drive from my province’s capital. The first hour of the drive is in a generally suburban and agricultural area. The next twenty-three are in forest, with only two small cities and a dozen or so villages on the way. If, after reaching my home, I want to continue north, it is another two day drive, with only a village at the end of the road. And again it is in timber country. North of that there are no roads, but lots and lots of timber – on a scale that is far, far greater than that of points south down to the Capital. My province’s area is over a billion square kilometers, almost all of it is forest, and almost all of it is uninhabited. That means that the land use costs are extremely low. The USA can not compete because its land use costs are higher, and its land use costs are higher because it is a far smaller country with far more people putting pressure on the land use.
As far as your crack about socialism goes, you really ought to clarify what your point is and then back it up with some facts. Here are some simple ones. After all expenses, the Crown makes a profit on stumpage fees which are set at competitive rates relative to the land use values. Socialism does not come into the equation, other than as a red flag waved in the USA by people who are unwilling to face the basic fact that the USA can not compete with Canada by virtue of its lack of timber and its expensive land use costs.
Now add into this massive difference in land use costs a generally lower wage rate, which is reflected in lower production costs, and a significantly lower dollar, which is reflected in lower export prices, and you should start to realize why the USA can not compete.
That Canada has higher taxes so as to support social services such as universal health care has no bearing on our ability to out compete with the USA in the timber industry. So quit with the “smacks of socialism” cracks.
The USA went into the North American Free Trade Agreement with its eyes open. In both our nations, some industries will flourish, and some will shrink, each depending on its ability to compete on the free market. The USA is unable to compete in a free timber market, so it is trying to dodge the free trade provisions of NAFTA. Thus Canada is taking the matter to the World Trade Organization. This is nothing new. Canada has taken similar disputes to ajudicaion before, and has won, as it will do again now.
To get a feel for how our system operates, get your hands on the Ontario Environmental Assessment Board’s EA-87-02 “Reason for Decision and Decision: Class Environmental Assessment by the Ministry of Natural Resources for Timber Management on Crown Lands in Ontario.” It is the final report on a five year, multi-party investigation into timber management practices in the province.
Cheers,
Richard Culpeper
Director, Environment North
(And intervenor in the above EA)
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<aside>I’m on a very funky browser so I don’t know how this post is going to look, or even if the board wil take it. Also, I’m sorry for the hijack of your thread, zoogirl. I’m sorry that you and yours are likely to face tough times because of this. I am sure that the families of the dead and injured in NY and DC had absolutely nothing to do with this trade dispute and that your kind donations have made a real difference in those lives.<aside>
Thanks for your post, Muffin. I’m glad that the Crown Lands make a profit. The US National Forests are constrained by a number of management acts and environmental protection acts, as well as by the Endangered Species Act. These acts raise the price of management to the point where very few National Forest timber sales turn a profit. To do so universally, the USDA Forest Service would have to charge such a high stumpage price that nobody would bid on the sales. To some degree, private landowners in the U.S. are subject to environmental protection laws as well. At the national level, the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act are the two main laws, but most states have their own environmental and forest management codes that have a greater impact on private timberland owners.
I’m curious if you’d care to comment on how Canada’s environmental protection laws compare to those in the U.S.? You can do so by email if you prefer - - see my profile.
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You are missing the most essential point: if at any time, Canada could “wink out” the U.S. timber industry in “short order” it makes sense for the U.S. to protect not only its timber industries but its private timberlands from such an event. Given the enormous pressures on U.S. private timberland owners from commercial development, and the important environmental role those forests have, wouldn’t you agree that keeping them profitable is one way to preserve them?
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It does smack of socialism. The Crown owns such a significant portion of Canada’s forest, sets the price, decides who will cut the timber, when it will be cut, etc., etc., that it is more in-line with a socialist form of management than it is a free, market-based system. Some in the U.S. are upset by that. But hey, if you want your government to clear your public forests and export them in form of lumber bundles, that’s your prerogative, I guess.
Again, my apologies for the hijack here. In lieu of posting to this thread again and hijacking it even further, I’ll attempt to start another thread next week when I have the time to really get into this in greater detail.
Look, the United States treats everyone like shit. We’re protectionist, isolationist, every negative -ist you’d care to name, we’re it. Except when it suits our purposes not to be. And then, when that purpose is accomplished, we go back to being -ists. We’re the 800 pound gorilla of nations. We get to be because we have the biggest weapons and the biggest economy. Don’t like it? We don’t care.
I’m being stereotypically “ugly American,” but that’s pretty much the way it is.
People can’t continue in dependent relationships unless they choose to. Same goes for nations. If your leaders are placing your nation in that position, get new leaders.
There is no significant difference in the laws or the degree of environmental protection when comparing Canada as a whole against the USA as a whole, given that between any state and province there may be significant differences in any one area of environmental legislation. The difference is in economies of scale and in amounts of conflicting use. Quite simply, when the planning process covers a massively greater homogenous area, the cost per hectre reduces. Since there are relatively far fewer people, there are far fewer conflicting uses to mitigate, which again leads to a less expensive planning process.
Here’s a stat to help put these economies of scale in perspective. Back in 1992, there were 37 timber management planners employed by the Crown in Ontario to cover the landmass of over a billion square kilometers. Adding approximately an equal number of planners employed by the logging companies still presents economies of scale which the USA can not meet.
Something well worth noting, though, is that along with the massive scale of the Canadian industry, comes a degree of moderation. When advances in the planning process occur (for example, adaptive management, integrated management, landscape management and the like), more often than not they arise elsewhere in the world and then are adopted in Canada after a lengthy study period. In that respect the Canadian forest industry is a bit of a slow moving elephant.
Another thing worth noting is that the lack of people makes for relatively smooth planning processes. Yes, there are some conflicts - - some real doozies!, but for the most part, the companies and the Crown go begging for public input. Unfortunately, this lack of input also leads to complacency, and a lack of pressure to be creative in the management process.
I buy into this argument, but I am in the miniority in Canada. I would love to see production cut for the purpose of raising the price, in turn giving the USA a shot at keeping what few forests its has, and Canada a shot at introducing some stability into its communities, rather than cut so quickly that mill towns have to be relocated every generation or so. Most importanty, I would like to see a reduction in cutting simply to perimit wild areas to remain wild. But as I say, I am in the minority with these views. More realisticly, what will happen is Canada will once again succeed in adjudication, only to face the same problem again and again and again, as the USA faces difficulties in adjusting to free trade in this industry.
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That has noting to do with socialism, but rather is a function of there not being very many people. We’re talking vast areas with on a handful of people. When the USA west was first being opened up, and there were large tracts of land and very few people, was that socialist? Of course not. So stop holding socialism out as a flag.
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No, the Crown does not set the price. The market sets the price. All the Crown does is set the stumpage fee, not the domestic or export price, and as previously mentioned, the stumpage fee provides a tidy profit to the Crown.
**Its a bidding system.
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The maturity of the trees dictate when harvest occurs. The overall cutting plans are developed by the logging companies, and variations to the plans are made by the logging companies.
** If, in light of what I have pointed out, you honestly believe that our logging instustry is a socialist system, then we’re pretty much at an impass. Similarly, if you are so intent on a free market system, then accept the free market and drop the trade barriers.
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Sadly, it is. I quite agree with you on this point. I personally believe that Canada is cutting itself short by placing such emphasis on being a bulk exporter of unfinished wood product. I’d much rather reduce the cuts and focus on value added exports. But as I say, I’m in the minority. The norm is to cut and move, cut and move, cut and move, as if there is no other use for a forest other than as a timber crop.
Oh please! Hijack it! I’m starting to feel like a jerk for the whole 9/11 thing. Like I said, tired, broke and bitchy.
At least the intelligent posters out there are making the whole tarrif issue somewhat more comprehensible to me. Thank you.
Good move. If the USA does not want free trade in one of our major commodities, there is no reason for them to have free trade in others until the get with the program. Alberta will be seriously pissed though.
Does anyone happen to know (with a specific cite), if Canada has any agreements or treaties with the USA which guarantee a supply of oil to the USA in times of American national crisis? I vaguely recall hearing of such some thing, but came up dry in a search last night. Am I remembering correctly, or are my synapses misfiring once again? I’d love to have a boo at the text, if there is such an instrument.
What does THAT tell you? Especially considering the WTO was pretty much spearheaded by the US…
[hijack; my apologies, I just really couldn’t let this slide]
Buzz! I’m sorry, thanks for playing.
As a percentage of GDP, US foreign aid is crap. I quote from an article which quotes OECD statistics:
Furthermore,
Just cuz the US might give more money in dollar terms don’t mean (a) that it’s more generous, since you just have more money to give; or (b) that it counteracts arms sales & so on, which I don’t really think can be justified; let’s open another thread if you wanna have at it.
But by the way, lemme point out that I think gifts with implicit strings attached suck; gifts with explicit strings attached are called “deals” and are cool; gifts with no strings attached are just that, gifts. Hobbes would argue that they’re the height of stupidity, Rand would argue that they’re immoral, but here I just think they’re cool too.
Slocan Forest Products donated a small amount of lumber to a British Columbia women’s charity. Based solely on that, their annual export of 30,000,000 board feet has been hit with a 19.24% duty on top of the already existing 19.3% duty, totaling 38.54%.