Don’t oversimplify the raw log issue

The rhetoric around log exports has ramped up, in part because of the premier’s announcement her government would not ban log exports. She claimed banning log exports was a “job killing” strategy, and she’s correct.

Adrian Dix and the NDP continue to take advantage of the slogan: “exporting B.C. logs is exporting B.C. jobs.” They, too, are correct.

The problem is log exports are a complicated public policy issue that requires a nuanced and thoughtful approach.

Turning it into a political hot potato serves no one, and I can guarantee you that the present partisan positions will be flipped if there’s a reversal in fortunes in the 2013 election.

While it would maximize jobs if we manufactured every log in B.C., what’s lost in the “exporting B.C. jobs” rhetoric is the fact that log exports actually sustain jobs on the Coast. Forest professionals, loggers, truck drivers, businesses that service logging and hauling equipment, longshoremen and a host of others are directly employed because log exports are allowed.

A number of mills on the Coast continue to operate today because their log supply is delivered at a lower cost as a result of logging for export quality logs. A number of First Nations also directly benefit from log exports in areas where they would not be able to log if exports were banned because there are no local customers.

And there’s the rub. The manufacturing capacity on the Coast has collapsed. In some areas it’s non-existent. If log exports were banned what’s left of the forest industry in the Northwest, North Island and mid-Coast would crash to a halt and many more “family-supporting jobs” would be lost.

In the past two years, log exports represented less than seven per cent of the total B.C. harvest. However fully 40 per cent of B.C.’s harvest over the past few years has been booked as “waste” and left in the bush. This is the real job killer: the underutilization of B.C.’s forest resources.

Now, so I’m not misunderstood, I believe we should do everything possible to limit the export of logs and ensure B.C.’s forest resources are processed in B.C.

However, we’ve long lost any opportunity to impose an outright ban on log exports without simply collapsing what’s left of the forest sector on the Coast.

It will take a lot of work by government, investment in manufacturing facilities, market development, workforce retraining and time before we can eliminate the conditions that currently drive the export of logs from B.C. However, we’d get more jobs and more direct benefits for British Columbians if we spent all of this energy pursuing the issue of the increasing underutilization of B.C.’s forest resources than applying it to the politically “sexier” issue of log exports.

Both political parties would better serve the public interest if they put aside the easy politics and collaborated on growing B.C.’s bioeconomy and finding ways to maximize the utilization of B.C.’s forest resources.

Ironically, taking this approach would also likely create the conditions that would see a gradual end to log exports as well.

—Bob Simpson is the independent MLA for Cariboo North.