To the Editor,
Re: China passes U.S. as B.C. lumber buyer, July 19.
What is not being reported is how much of those exports are actual manufactured lumber products and how much of those exports are raw logs.
A reporter only needs to drive to the docks downtown and out to the old Island Pheonix site to see the large freighters of raw logs and jobs being exported from this province.
But Jobs, Tourism and Innovation Minister Pat Bell doesn’t want to talk about that.
More raw logs than ever are being exported while our mills and workers sit unemployed and are owed severance by these companies ramping up on raw log exports.
Do some research and find out how much an average millworker in China gets paid to process our logs in their plants. The figure I heard was $150 per month. We cannot compete with those labour costs.
In the long run, we will see more mills close and workers lose their jobs with companies looking for any legal angle to avoid paying their workers the severance they owe them. The writing is on the wall.
As China ramps up their production, they will need raw logs.
Brent Martin
Nanaimo