Ownership ensures continued softwood disputes
The softwood dispute comes from the base of ownership.
In Canada approximately 80 per cent of timber is provincially owned and 20 per cent by private and federal ownership. In the U.S. it is just reversed; 80 per cent is by private ownership and only 20 per cent by state and federal ownership.
Provinces keep stumpage fees low as their interest is to promote work from stump to studs to increase the tax base. In the U.S. the owners are interested in profit, and people do not count; only the bottom line matters.
Coming from a different resource owned base there will never be agreement. Compromise only/maybe.
Art Seger
Duncan