N2272V

This whole argument boils down to what Canadian Companies pay to the government for the right to harvest trees on Government land called "stumpage."

Here is a great article regarding this written by a Canadian from Quebec. I am including a part of the article, the rest, for those who care, can be seen on http://forests.org/archive/canada/caresown.htm :

"THE GALLON ENVIRONMENT LETTER
Vol. 5, No. 12,
Copyright (c) 2001, Canadian Institute for Business and the Environment, Montreal & Toronto
March 21, 2001
506 Victoria Ave.
Montreal, Quebec H3Y 2R5
Ph. (514) 369-0230
Fax (514) 369-3282
Email ggallon@pcstarnet.com

CANADA PRIMARILY RESPONSIBLE FOR SOFTWOOD LUMBER DISPUTE

The fact is that forest companies operating in Canada are receiving more subsidies and paying lower stumpage fees than their counterparts in the United States. Forest companies in Canada do less reforestation and protect less endangered species than those in the U.S. Forest companies in Canada have been purposefully low-grading valuable timber for which they pay much less stumpage fees than they would if they were more honest. As a result, the forest companies in Canada are operating a definite competitive advantage over the U.S. forest companies. Canada is allowing its valuable forests to be stripped as quickly as possible and sold at a discount to the United States - - without giving a thought to sustainable yield, adequate old growth protection, and long-term economic protection of the forest industry into the next generation. Home builders and commercial lumber companies in the United States love it, because they can get such cheap timber from Canada, when they can't it from their U.S. forest companies. Also, it is suspected that Quebec forest companies are cutting trees and selling the timber cheap through the Atlantic provinces to the U.S. without being subject to the more expensive U.S. Canada softwood trade agreement (see, "Lumber Unity in Tatters as B.C. Breaks Ranks", by Ian Jack, Financial Post, March 21, 2001). If Canada is going to participate in free trade then it must play on a level playing field. It can't dump cheap timber into the United States just to boost the immediate income of foreign and Canadian forest companies operating in Canada. Ironically, Canada has placed itself in a position where the U.S. will end up placing a countervailing duty on the Canadian timber that enters the U.S. "

"A recent Vancouver Sun newspaper survey of stumpage rates showed that Doman – which harvests over three million cubic metres of timber a year, paid an average price of $26.83 a cubic metre in 2000, more than four times rival Interfor, which paid only $6.28 a cubic metre. A cubic metre is about the equivalent of a telephone pole Under an obscure piece of legislation called the Ministry of Forests Act, the forests minister is required to ensure stumpage is collected in a fair and equitable manner. Source: Vancouver Sun See the comments at http://e-wood.com/news/news_archive_Detail.asp?id=3851 . See the full article at http://www.e-wood.com/nsearch.asp?ke...1/1/00INTERFOR, TIMBER WEST, AND WEYERHAEUSER GOT AWAY WITH PAYING VERY LOW STUMPAGE RATES IN B.C. "

I hope that this Canadian has sufficient credibility to put this argument in perspective for you Cpal. We all know how you abhor the FACTS. Seeing that you fancy yourself this GREEN Environmentalist, this should make you angry as hell at the Canadian Government. Does one see irony in your statements?

Now you have, THE REST of the story.

Carry on!