The B.C. NDP and B.C. Green parties have put log exports into the spotlight of their respective election campaigns with promises to curb shipments abroad, which have soared over recent years, in favour of pressuring timber firms to process those logs at home.
Sawmills have closed and jobs have been lost on the B.C. coast, but B.C. Truck Loggers Association executive director David Elstone argues that has more to do with reduced timber harvests than log exports and that curbing exports would cost even more jobs in his sector.
Coastal forests are so mixed that loggers can’t just cut trees they know that local mills will buy, Elstone said, and if they know they don’t have the option to put the rest of the logs up for auction to export, that is a disincentive to log altogether.
Vancouver Sun – May 5, 2017.