Right now the argument given by the American lumber industry for the softwood lumber tariffs added at the border

Right now the argument given by the American lumber industry for the softwood lumber tariffs added at the border is that our stumpage fees and program is government help or are subsidies by another name.

The funny thing is, we are shipping more raw logs off the west coast to lumber mills in the USA than we ever have before.

I don't think we even charge the GST because they are an export. The stumpage fee is charged and levied on the 'stump,' not the 2 x 4's.

That means we ship the raw log and don't keep the logs in Canada for value added processing. Why do we do that? That great NAFTA or FTA deal we negotiated left out forestry, and made us commit to supply the American's with their energy with out fear of us selling more to another company and taking that away from the Americans.

We got screwed, and with our lack of tough negotiators in Ottawa, we continue to get screwed.

The real issue is that the lumber industry in Canada is more productive and efficient than the Americans. The American's are also running out of, or out of the much need log supplies. When the problem of the cedar shakes came up on the west coast there was a levy placed against the importation of Canadian cedar shakes for the California market.

The mills in Canada just became more productive, and increased their exportation of the shakes, despite the levy. Why?

The Canadian shakes are superior to what the California housing industry could find anywhere else. Canada has got to get out of this mind set that anything we do is second class or second rate, and anything the Americans do, say, or make must be the best in the world.

We are as competitive, innovative, and effective a producer of anything in the world, as any one else.

We just need to grow our pride in what we do.