Six Months

I have made no posts in 6 months because all news simply continues to be totally depressing shit, and I'm sick of being bummed out.
Continued declines in US housing starts, slipping lumber prices and now the totally immoral, deceitful use of 'environmental' laws by US pulp producers to get billions of dollars in subsidies by polluting more.
Then yesterday, the latest blotch on the horizon for this area.
Nak’azdli Band filed a petition in B.C. Supreme Court to stop the development of Terrane’s Mount Milligan Mine.
The Band has ordered Terrane to remove all equipment from the property.
link @ opinon250

This is just too goddam much.

Newfounland Drops The Hammer

Closing a mill and planning to get rich selling your timber rights? Don't try it in Newfoundland & Labrador where their government has decided thou shalt not profit from creating ghost towns.
Abitibi-Bowater is about to have it's timber rights and hydro-electric rights expropriated for not living up to it's commitments closing down a pulp mill!
--- link to story
Take note BC, with an election coming next year will this be added to a Party platform?

FSJ Curse Continues

One of the biggest drawbacks to living in the Fort is The Drag... an ongoing curse where nothing, absolutely nothing ever gets resolved, completed, or comes to a conclusion in a timely manner. It just goes on and on and on, forever.
Witness Mt. Milligan. The mine that's been about to open for the whole 20 years I've lived here.
Now, the latest is that they're a victim of economic times, They can't borrow money, just like any other business.
Victims of the financial crisis that doesn't exist here according to our Glorious Leader in Ottawa. You know, the one with the Mr. Dreesup fuzzy sweater who says we're in great shape and spends more time playing partisan games and fomenting Parliamentary crises...
The latest 'opening date' is now moved into Spring 2010. Any Investment here will be on hold for another year.

http://tinyurl.com/6sa8z9

MIlligan moves ahead, but?

Terrane Metals continues to award contracts on its proposed $916-million Mount Milligan gold and copper mine in the Northern Interior.
The company has awarded two additional contracts, with ABB Switzerland Ltd. to supply motors for the mills and to Siemen AG for transformers for mine-site substations. Earlier this year, Terrane awarded a contract to Metso Minerals Industries to supply various mills, including the primary crusher mill.
... Responding to questions about the sinking price of copper and poor commodity markets:
"Should we get to the third quarter of 2009 and these markets are still terrible, and you can't (borrow) a nickel from a bank, obviously we are not going to be starting construction even if we get permits in place," said Pease.
However, the company has options if the financial picture doesn't improve, including delaying of the first-year's construction which might be able to be caught up at a later date

-- full article PG Citizen

Wardrop Engineering Inc. has been awarded the detailed engineering design and procurement contract for the Mt. Milligan Copper-Gold Project.

--- from opinion250

Jack Layton's Right!

Scrap the Softwood Deal!

Everyone knows it was an awful deal, after all. It raised the penalty for exporting lumber to the U.S. from a combined rate of 10.8 per cent to 15 per cent; it also hit Canada with the so-called "surge mechanism," designed to discourage investment in Canadian sawmills. Then it added insult to injury by handing half a billion dollars of our money to the U.S. Coalition on Fair Lumber Imports -- the ultra-protectionists who launched the lumber fight -- and another half billion to George Bush for use as a political slush fund.

The deal increased raw log exports by saddling lumber exporters with a border tax but allowing raw logs to enter the U.S. duty-free. It encouraged investment in the U.S. rather than in Canada since our sawmills pay the 15 per cent tax while U.S. mills pay nothing. And both Ottawa and B.C. handed Canadian companies cash with no strings attached, most of which they immediately invested in the U.S. No wonder that in the now-melting-down North American building products market, Canadian producers are even more severely hammered than their U.S. competitors.

On top of all this, Canada was inches from winning the dispute before World Trade Organization tribunals, NAFTA panels and U.S. courts. Days after the deal was signed in 2006 the U.S. Court of International Trade ruled the U.S. tariffs and duties illegal, ordering the U.S. government to give back all of Canada's money. But since Stephen Harper had already caved in and signed a sweetheart deal with George Bush, that decision was moot. We threw away a sure win in the courts for sure defeat under the Harper-Bush deal.

-- from thetyee.ca

We Hate To Say We Told Ya So Dept.:

Pact lets dollars pour into mergers, not jobs and communities.

--look back to what was written in 2006. It's ALL BECOME TRUE.

And in the Things Aren't Getting Better Dept. we point out, well, in spite of smiles and back-claps and pancake breakfasts - now we may end up without one gas station in the Municipal District!

Chevron/Town Pantry bales out of the Fort - link to the Citizen
and we know Mr. G is barely hanging on. The 3 people who will actually put 'Last Gasp' pseudo-fuel in a $35,000+ vehicle can't keep that going.
AND Mackenzie - link to the Citizen
And the town is right pissed. Unfortunately not too many citizens here think a modernized station would make a go of it.
Do you think a Triple-0 burger takeout inside the Town Pantry would make money? Of course not - you probably won't! But your kids would buy every burger it cranked out just because it's close to the school, and just because it's a franchise name. Believe it or not, people would keep a McDs going in this town just because it isn't the same old unpredictable piece of shit burger.
It's time for someone to put their money where their mouth is and support a modern franchise outlet here, whether it be 7-11, A&W or a mini-White Spot. Otherwise, just like Chevron Head Office, YOU don't think your own town deserves anything but second-rate knock-offs.
A real carwash would be good too, rather than standing in 6" of muck off a logging truck and feeding tokens in for hours while you get wetter than your car.

Canadians Want Aid For Forest Industry

The results of a new poll by Nanos Research for the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada (CEP) come as major forest companies in Canada face an immediate debt crisis.
The poll showed that 60% of Canadians agreed or somewhat agreed that federal and provincial governments should financially support the forest industry to prevent more companies from failing. Just 32.1% disagreed or somewhat disagreed with government support for forestry companies.

--Unfortunately, the Softwood Lumber Agreement specifically bans any aid that would benefit our own industry. A major reason why much of the money returned after the signing of the Agreement was used by Canadian mills to purchase US operations instead of modernizing and upgrading their own.

Here's the link to the full article

Close to home, the Mackenzie Pulp mill will not be firing up before next spring.
Mackenzie mill will be winterized, no plans to restart before spring

West Fraser Buys Stuart Lake Lumber

But no guarantee it will open; may just want the timber rights.

West Fraser has reached an agreement to buy Stuart Lake Lumber, which owns a sawmill in Fort St. James shut down since the spring of 2007.
The mill will not be operating any time soon because of market conditions, West Fraser would consider all of its options.
Forest industry analyst Paul Quinn said West Fraser is making a smart move by buying the mill for its long-term timber rights

.
---link

Meanwhile, Conifex is trying to start up the old Pope&Talbot mill but is experiencing some delays
---link