Ben Parfitt

As pulp mill and sawmill jobs plummet in number, British Columbia’s Forests Ministry is opening the door to more exports of unprocessed logs, including those produced from trees cut down in old-growth forests. Under current rules, companies … pay a “fee in lieu of manufacturing”… But in February, the provincial government quietly lowered those fees. The reduced fees will make it more profitable to ship logs away, and although the government says it will incentivize more logging, others warn that the change risks undermining  jobs in the province’s struggling forest industry. …Arnold Bercov, a former worker at the Harmac pulp mill and former president of the Pulp, Paper and Woodworkers of Canada, warns that the move will hurt B.C.’s forestry sector. …[Saying] the government’s surplus test is “a trap.” “The more logs you export, the more mills that shut down,” he said. “And the more mills that shut down, the more exports you have.”