So Mr. H. Is Great at Managing the Economy?
So one of Mr. H's spins for the election is "who better to run the economy in difficult economic times" - well off course the obvious question is why are the times difficult? So for the next few days I'm going blog on his wonderful economic record. For the first topic, the Softwood Lumber Deal. In northern BC: Prince George, Terrace, Fort St. James - all communities flourishing until the Softwood Deal. Now: a major downturn in the softwood sector, people moving away in large numbers, houses for sale everywhere, rentals available everywhere and before long a downturn in the whole northern BC economy. Those of you who know the effects of this deal in other parts of Canada please post a comment.
posted by Susan at 10:29 AM
4 Comments:
You're a moron if you think the softwood deal has anything to do with the current state of the lumber industry. The sole reason for the problems in the current market is the US housing meltdown. But shills rarely bother with facts now, do they?
Well reg, I'm not a moron. My understanding is that tariffs kicked in when the price of lumber in the US went down and lo and behold it went down, so now our lumber exports are subjected to tariffs and therefore priced out of the US market. Of course if Mr. H. didn't think that the only other country in the world was the US, he might have planned for a more diversified approach to our exports allowing us to enter other markets that are not so rabidly protectionist.
That's right Susan, Steven Harper has neglected the Asian and European markets to focus all of his eggs in a George Bush market. When Chretien and Martin were in power the Liberals had been constantly pushing for market expansion. Reg, you and your conservative robots should come up with a better line than " yes that is a result of an economic turn south of the border but we knew that would happen", If you guys knew or expected that, then why not prepare!!!
LOL. I'm not a conservative, I'm a lumber exporter.
I'm telling you the only reason for the current problems the Canadian industry is facing is the lack of demand from the US. We've tried selling elsewhere, Northern European and Russian mills eat our lunch overseas. Asia building practices have been moving away from stick framing for years. And if you think we want any government interference in dictating how and where we sell our product, again, you're ignorant of what you are talking about.
As to getting priced out of the market because of the deal, you are basically making the argument that we should be able to dump as much product at a loss into any market we want. That's the basic starting point for any trade agreement. You place tariffs on imports that are being dumped at a loss. We are currently producing lumber at a loss because mills generally cut and mill crown land allotments, even at a loss, so they don't looe them. If you think that is irrelevant and we should still be able to sell whatever, wherever, then be prepared to lose manufacturing jobs when other jurisdictions dump other products in Canada.
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