Burns Lake council wants the province to stop allowing northern B.C.’s raw logs to be shipped to other countries.
In a letter to the Ministry of Forests, council urged the province to “reconsider allowing log exports out of Stewart.”
“Instead of shipping logs offshore to be processed, the logs could be sent to local mills, maintaining employment and milling capacity in the region,” stated the letter dated Nov. 15.
Burns Lake Mayor Dolores Funk told Lakes District News the issue of raw log exports is one that affects the forest products industry as a whole.
“Raw log export weakens our ability to benefit our economy through the manufacturing of value-added products,” said Funk. “As a community that relies heavily on the forest industry, we are concerned that this practice still continues.”
Dawn Makarowski, a ministry spokesperson, said allowing some exports from remote areas of the province allows fibre that would otherwise be too expensive to access to be harvested, in turn providing employment in the harvesting, transportation and support industries.
But Makarowski said it is the government’s objective is to see more logs processed in British Columbia.
The Coast Forest Sector Revitalization initiative, announced in January 2019, aims to increase the processing of B.C. logs within the province while reducing residual waste fibre left in the woods by redirecting it to B.C. pulp and paper mills. A similar review is underway for the Interior.
Funk said raw log exports stunt the industry’s ability to create new markets.
“We know that as the quality and quantity of our logs dwindles, we must evolve our industry to ensure that raw logs are no longer exported and that we gain as much economic benefit as possible from each harvested tree,” said Funk.
In 2018, 67.4 million cubic metres of logs were harvested in B.C. Exports of 5.1 million cubic metres (7.6 per cent of harvest), mostly from coastal areas, were worth $740 million.
The U.S., China, and Japan are the top three export markets for the B.C. forest sector.
The forest products industry in the Burns Lake area has been facing other challenges, including a reduction in annual allowable cut (AAC).
Hampton Lumber, which owns Decker Lake and Babine Forest Products, has been working to find a solution to continue operating at full capacity after the region’s AAC was reduced by 41 per cent in November.
OTTAWA – The parliamentary budget officer says the federal government likely failed to keep its deficit below its promised $40 billion cap in the last fiscal year.
However the PBO also projects in its latest economic and fiscal outlook today that weak economic growth this year will begin to rebound in 2025.
The budget watchdog estimates in its report that the federal government posted a $46.8 billion deficit for the 2023-24 fiscal year.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland pledged a year ago to keep the deficit capped at $40 billion and in her spring budget said the deficit for 2023-24 stayed in line with that promise.
The final tally of the last year’s deficit will be confirmed when the government publishes its annual public accounts report this fall.
The PBO says economic growth will remain tepid this year but will rebound in 2025 as the Bank of Canada’s interest rate cuts stimulate spending and business investment.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says the level of food insecurity increased in 2022 as inflation hit peak levels.
In a report using data from the Canadian community health survey, the agency says 15.6 per cent of households experienced some level of food insecurity in 2022 after being relatively stable from 2017 to 2021.
The reading was up from 9.6 per cent in 2017 and 11.6 per cent in 2018.
Statistics Canada says the prevalence of household food insecurity was slightly lower and stable during the pandemic years as it fell to 8.5 per cent in the fall of 2020 and 9.1 per cent in 2021.
In addition to an increase in the prevalence of food insecurity in 2022, the agency says there was an increase in the severity as more households reported moderate or severe food insecurity.
It also noted an increase in the number of Canadians living in moderately or severely food insecure households was also seen in the Canadian income survey data collected in the first half of 2023.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct 16, 2024.
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says manufacturing sales in August fell to their lowest level since January 2022 as sales in the primary metal and petroleum and coal product subsectors fell.
The agency says manufacturing sales fell 1.3 per cent to $69.4 billion in August, after rising 1.1 per cent in July.
The drop came as sales in the primary metal subsector dropped 6.4 per cent to $5.3 billion in August, on lower prices and lower volumes.
Sales in the petroleum and coal product subsector fell 3.7 per cent to $7.8 billion in August on lower prices.
Meanwhile, sales of aerospace products and parts rose 7.3 per cent to $2.7 billion in August and wood product sales increased 3.8 per cent to $3.1 billion.
Overall manufacturing sales in constant dollars fell 0.8 per cent in August.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 16, 2024.
