Should Canfor be allowed to sell timber harvesting rights?

Canfor is is the works of selling off timber harvesting rights in BC for millions of dollars, as many of their mills have seen curtailments or closures over the last few months.

James Steidle with Stop the Spray BC called out this move, arguing that the price tag should be a whopping $0.

“We gave these timber harvesting rights to these companies in exchange for jobs. That was in the Forest Act at the time, and not only just jobs, but also environmental management to protect fisheries and wildlife populations. So we never got paid for the harvesting rights, right? The public of British Columbia, we never charged anybody money for those rights.”

Steidle said this deal seems to have been forgotten, and isn’t being enforced by the BC Government.

In 2003, some changes came in the form of the Forest Revitalization Amendment Act, which allowed logs to be shipped to other mills, allowing for a better value while trying to maintain jobs, but Steidle said logging companies have been taking advantage of this act.

“The idea was that they could basically rationalize their operations, and maybe get rid of some of the smaller, inefficient mills, and expand their big mills, but we would still get jobs for logs.”

“But they interpreted that to mean well hey, we can close down a saw mill in an entire region, like Fort Nelson for instance, and we can keep our timber harvesting rights, and we can actually turn around and sell those rights to a third party for tens of millions of dollars,” added Steidle.

He argued these companies shouldn’t get to continue to possess or sell timber harvesting rights after they no longer supply jobs to those regions.

“It should be provided to a company that can comply with the spirit and intent of the original contract. Fort Nelson was a perfect example, Canfor hung on to those cutting rights for ten years, and didn’t do anything. They shut down every single mill in that community.”

“I think the province should take it back and put it out to tender, or if we want to keep going with the same system that we originally handed out these tenures, then we take the tenure back, and say, who’s going to build the mill in Mackenzie? Who’s going to run the mill in Mackenzie? That’s who gets the wood,” added Steidle.

“The company that’s going to keep that mill running gets the rights to the wood. Not the company that’s going to try and close down the mill, put hundreds of people out of work, and leave a community in crisis, because that’s what’s happened to Mackenzie.”