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More money in the province's coffers! Not. Most being funneled in tax havens. The golden rule, the one with the gold makes the rules.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/ag-lumber-market-system-1.5769858
'Significant improvements' in province's lumber market system, says auditor general
· CBC News · Posted: Oct 20, 2020 5:50 PM AT
The report released Tuesday says the province now has a better system for accurately calculating sales to mills from private woodlots, a benchmark that helps set royalties paid for timber from publicly owned Crown lands. (CBC)
Auditor General Kim Adair-MacPherson has thrown a potential lifeline to the province's forestry industry, saying a major irritant that helped provoke U.S. tariffs has been fixed.
Her report released Tuesday says the province now has a better system for accurately calculating sales to mills from private woodlots, a benchmark that helps set royalties paid for timber from publicly owned Crown lands.
"A lot has changed," Adair-MacPherson told reporters. "There has been what we call significant improvements in the process and the methodology."
An earlier report in 2008 by then-Auditor General Michael Ferguson concluded that the New Brunswick wood market "is not truly an open market" because of flaws in how the province surveyed private wood sales to set the Crown rate.
It said data was often incomplete and sample sizes in some parts of the province were too small, making it difficult to assess whether the Crown rate reflected market conditions.
That 2008 report was cited by the U.S. forestry industry when it argued New Brunswick's system was "heavily flawed" and convinced the Trump administration to eliminate a long-standing exemption for New Brunswick from U.S. tariffs on softwood lumber.
Another factor in that decision was the rising share of wood from Crown land, which in the eyes of American policymakers amounts to subsidized lumber.
In 2017 the U.S. applied new tariffs on Canada and eliminated the traditional New Brunswick exemption it had in place during previous tariff battles.
J.D. Irving Ltd. pays 9.38 percent on its exports to the U.S. while other mill owners pay 20.8 percent.
"We hope today's report advances rightful pursuit of duty free lumber exports to the United States for the NBLP," said Jerome Pelletier, a vice-president of J.D. Irving Ltd. and chair of the New Brunswick Lumber Producers.
System now working
Adair-MacPherson says the process for measuring private wood sales is now working. "It's a valid tool to use in setting the Crown timber rates."
But she says the province must now use the improved system to update rates annually, as required by law. The rates haven't been updated since 2015.
“A
lot has changed,” Auditor General Kim Adair-MacPherson told reporters.
“There has been what we call significant improvements in the process and
the methodology.” (Ed Hunter/CBC)
Natural Resources and Energy Development Minister Mike Holland says he was glad to see the audit.
"We've listened, we've corrected some drift and we're moving in the right direction," he said.
"I'm very pleased that she came back and indicated that we have a functioning market here in the province."
He said his department would be "working toward" updating the rates annually but would not comment on whether the new audit would be used by New Brunswick to argue for its traditional exemption from tariffs.
The World Trade Organization recently ruled that the U.S. was wrong to impose the tariffs on Canada in 2017.
Natural Resources and Energy Development Minister Mike Holland says he was glad to see the audit. (Kirk Pennell/CBC News)
It said the U.S. Commerce Department made errors in determining the benchmark Canadian timber prices to determine whether producers here were paying adequate stumpage fees to provincial governments.
But the Trump administration swiftly attacked the ruling as unfair.
Last
year the Higgs government announced plans to give private woodlots a
larger share of the market to supply large mills in New Brunswick, while
freezing the amount coming from Crown land.
About the Author
CBC's Journalistic Standards and Practices
Or the government had Irving's back with lobbyist and lawyers.
Like the AG said, our lumber industry is not an open market, and that is bad for consumers and small woodlot owners. It's very good for the ones that control the monopoly though.
There is a reason trump's America First, America Only is so popular.
The Chief of Staff Mikey Hollingworth finally called me back from 613 898 6568 (not his office number) on Oct 20th at 3:30 PM my time. I was happy he called and thanked him for doing so. He claimed to have found nothing about my concernrs and seemed surprised whie told hi i had already made comments in cbc and tweeted about him and his boss. I gave him the benefit of my doubt and Hollingworth listened intently as I gave him the background but as soon as I zeroed in on contacts the Commissioners, he got too busty to speak with me any longer. Surprise surprise Surprise like i have met with such a resopnse hundreds of times from cops, lawyer. politicians and bureaucrats trying to play dumb. So I as I left him off the hook I merely told him to say hey to his boss because he is the dude I wish to argue in Federal Court.
https://geds-sage.gc.ca/en/GEDS?pgid=014&dn=T1U9Q08tQkMsT1U9Q0JDLUJDQyxPVT1JU0VELUlTREUsTz1HQyxDPUNB
Commissioner's Office
People7
- Boswell, Matthew; 819-997-3304; Commissioner;
- Courchesne, Annik; 819-997-5300; Executive Assistant;
- Hollingworth, Mike; 819-997-5222; Chief of Staff;
- Kinkartz, Lionel; 819-997-2868; Special Advisor;
- Landry-Morson, Lise; 819-934-4298; Special Advisor;
- McDonald, George; 819-934-0290; A/Chief Digital Enforcement Officer;
- Stagg, Allison; 613-799-8275; Consultant;
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-hollingworth-1a7ab32b/?originalSubdomain=ca
Michael Hollingworth
Chief of Staff and Associate Deputy Commissioner at Competition Bureau Canada
Experience
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Title Chief of Staff
Dates Employed Jul 2019 – Present
Employment Duration 1 yr 4 mos
Location Ottawa, Canada Area
-
Title Assistant Deputy Commissioner
Dates Employed May 2016 – Present
Employment Duration 4 yrs 6 mos
-
Title Senior Competition Law Officer
Dates Employed Nov 2013 – May 2016
Employment Duration 2 yrs 7 mos
The Competition Bureau, as an independent law enforcement agency, ensures that Canadian businesses and consumers prosper in a competitive and innovative marketplace.
-
Title Advisor to the Commissioner of Competition
Dates Employed Dec 2010 – Nov 2013
Employment Duration 3 yrs
-
Title Senior Advisor to the Commissioner of Competition
Dates Employed Aug 2012 – Apr 2013
Employment Duration 9 mos
-
Title Counsel
Dates Employed Jan 2010 – Dec 2010
Employment Duration 12 mos
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/lumber-high-woodlot-low-1.5763456
High lumber prices not trickling down, say woodlot owners
Woodlot owners say that while the cost of lumber has skyrocketed, the royalties they get for roundwood haven't
CBC News · Posted: Oct 15, 2020 2:23 PM AT
While retailers and mills are reaping the rewards of increased lumber demand, woodlot owners claim the same can't be said for them. (CBC)
Lumber prices have skyrocketed as more people do renovations and new builds during the COVID-19 pandemic.
And while retailers and mills are reaping the rewards of increased demand, the same can't be said for woodlot owners.
Rick Doucett, the president of the New Brunswick Federation of Woodlot Owners, said the royalties paid to woodlot owners for raw materials have not increased during the pandemic even as the prices for finished lumber has gone up.
"The expectation [is] when you [see] the price of lumber increase to that amount, you would see a corresponding increase in price of roundwood, which is used to make that particular lumber," said Doucett.
"In this particular case, even though there's been… record setting lumber prices, we're certainly not seeing record setting roundwood prices. In fact, we're not even seeing increases at all."
Doucett said the price of finished lumber, the kind you would buy in a hardware store, has skyrocketed.
"Lumber prices over the last six, seven, eight months have have gone up over 100 percent," said Doucett.
"Back in June on the Natural Resources Canada site, the price for two by fours per thousand [board feet] was $600. And in September, it was $1,300 per thousand [board feet]."
Current system
Doucett said the issue is that the price paid by mills is determined by how much lumber they have in lumber yards.
They can get a lot of lumber from Crown land, and Doucett says the province isn't selling that wood at a competitive price, which hurts woodlot owners.
Rick Doucett, the president of the New Brunswick Federation of Woodlot Owners, said the royalties paid to woodlot owners for raw materials have not increased during the pandemic even as the prices for finished lumber has gone up. (CBC)
"Because we have a large supplier of wood, basically the Crown, that doesn't seem to care whether they make any money selling wood, that wood supply gets into people's yards and it creates an inventory issue that is used to keep the prices of what needs to be paid for private wood down," said Doucett.
The disparity is so deep Doucett said he didn't cut any wood on his lot this year because he didn't feel he would get a fair return on value.
Doucett said in other jurisdictions, like Alberta, harvesters pay wood royalties on a sliding scale based on the price of the finished product.
Pushing for change
He said New Brunswick doesn't do this, and it's in the best interest of the mills for this arrangement to continue.
"I suspect that those that would have to pay those royalties, you know, on a sliding scale, based on the value of finished products, are putting up an argument why that might not be beneficial to New Brunswick," said Doucett.
"I'm not privy to that argument, but I do know that other jurisdictions have moved in that direction."
Doucett said the federation has lobbied successive governments to change legislation to make the arrangement more equitable for woodlot owners, so far with no success.
"The original Crown Lands and Forest Act has been gutted by amendments that served only one part of the equation, which is basically the interests of the industry," said Doucett.
"We made many suggestions to many governments as to what amendments need to be either replaced or put back into the Crown Land and Forest Act to bring some fairness back into the system. But nobody's moved on it."
With files from Information Morning Fredericton
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Under the definitions of what is "carbon neutral" in terms of sources of energy are trees. The idea is that since they grow back and sequester carbon that cutting them and burning them only temporarily releases carbon into the atmosphere and that carbon will eventually be sequestered back in the trees when they grow again.
Because of that, trees are being cut across North America to be burned in biomass power plants to produce electricity, a supposedly "clean energy".
That electricity is then used to power things like electric cars.
So, whenever someone plugs in their car, the odds are that they are using either fossil-fuel generated electricity through the burning of coal or wood-powered electricity through the burning of trees. In our neck of the woods, we produce a lot of electricity through hydro projects and wind turbines, so we are the exception.
The bottom line is this: If we want to protect forests in North America, we should encourage the development of the Alberta tar sands and the use of gasoline and diesel powered vehicles that are as fuel-efficient and clean as possible rather than electric vehicles that are powered by energy ultimately derived from wood and coal-powered plants.
The current high prices are not going to last. It's a blip in the demand. A lot of the work done by DIYers this year during the Covid-19 layoffs is likely stuff people would have done over the next few years. They just had the chance to do it earlier.
That means that next year and maybe even the year after than, demand for lumber will probably be softer than usual - and much lower than this year.
That's important because if woodlot owners want royalties to go up now because lumber prices are high now, then by the same logic they would have to agree to lower royalties when the prices plummet next year.
The woodlot owners are going to have one, maybe two good years of high sales as lumberyards rebuild stock. Once the demand tapers off, though, so too will the sawmills purchases of roundwood. When that happens, lumber prices will drop and so will the amount of wood sawmills are buying.
If the woodlot owners tie their royalties to the lumber prices, then their royalties would start falling just as the volume of sales also drops - and that could have a very serious negative impact on their operations.
They might be better off to just leave the royalties where they are, sell more wood over the next year, and store up some of that extra revenue for what will likely be a lean year after that.
That said Methinks you should scroll down You may change your mind and regain a little empathy. We are all in the same punky dory and sometimes it appears to me that nobody has been trying to bail it out but I never lose my faith in my fellow Maritimers whom I was born a raised with We were all raised to the Four Fs N'esy Pas?
"Methinks Higgy's Circus must go on and on and on N'esy Pas?"
You mean the Empire had their way again? Nooooooo... baffling
Go figure. Why would the government fix something that has already caused so much pain to so many.
Methinks you wish to forget Austin et al supported Higgy and helped him det the mandate stay in power until he got a majority mandate and kicked the PANB to the curb N'esy Pas?
Trust that I had his number back in 2010 before Higgy was ever elected and before Austin registered his dubious party with Elections NB I have not been surprised ever since as he went out of his way to prove to many that he was not worthy of anyone's vote. Higgy et all no doubt know that last summer I was busy exposing his BS on a recorded live talk show until I was maliciously cut off. Anyone can listen to what we said to this very day..
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