Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Tariffs double on Canadian lumber

If you think that's bad I priced a 4'x8'x1/4" thick piece of hot rolled steel today and that was $612.00. A little over a year ago I think it was $260.00

But that’s Canuck dollars, eh, mate?
😉

I was just making a ridiculous analogy scenario equating 'free hay' to stupid low stumpage prices Canadian mills pay for raw logs. Trying to show JC that it's an unlevel playing field, regardless of the commodity, hence the need for tariffs if one side ain't playin' fair. Outfits like West Fraser and Mac and Bloe have created an empire in our lifetimes with nearly free timber.

Yep Mike, but if you clowns stopped printing more money, the exchange rate would go back to being in our favour !

Honest question here... Seriously...

Name 5 things that will cost more (a little more or a lot more)... 12 months from now.

I'll start:

1) Building materials and equipment will become scarce and will cost a LOT more.

2) Fuel will cost a LOT more. Shipping cost will rise by 25%+

3) Interest rates on home and car loans will cost a LOT more.

4) Transportation (new and used cars and trucks) will cost a LOT more.

5) The cat meat I sell to Ling at the back door of his Chinese restaurant after closing time... will cost him a LOT more.

Now try and name 5 things that will NOT cost more...

During this recent manipulated lumber “crisis” the mills around here couldn’t fit more lumber in their yards or more logs on their landings. It was obvious from the number of loaded log trucks and the overstuffed mills that market manipulation and taking advantage of people during the “pandemic” was on full display.

I have as much allegiance to American lumber as American lumber has allegiance to the American consumer….

Gosh...are you sure?

I bet Salty actually thinks there is free hay.

Glad someone as paralyzingly literal as yourself would point that out.

flintlocke;
Good afternoon to you sir, I hope the day's been a good one for you down south and all in your world are well.

Where I'm sitting and typing, I am less than one kilometer from what once was Weyerhaeuser's most productive sawmill in BC. They employed at least 350 people directly and then likely double that indirectly, not to mention the support industry like logging trucks and equipment sales.

They - that is corporate headquarters - took millions of board feet of Okanagan timber out at what you've termed "stupid low stumpage prices" in return for supporting the local economy. Any guesses which country the profits went to?

The same corporate headquarters closed that mill and now runs "super mills" which mean that everyone other than them takes less profit because of greater transportation costs. Log truck haulers which used to run 6 trucks as they were able to to 3 runs a day locally now are either down to 1 or 2 trucks or are gone.

Indeed as you mentioned, MacBlo did well - well enough to be sold to Weyerhaeuser in 1999.

No, Weyerhaeuser weren't the best company for timely replanting without being reminded either, but overall they weren't a bad place for a person to make a living while it lasted.

Please note I'm not complaining about the decades of employment they provided friends of mine.

I would respectfully submit however that once again a lot of this is mere smoke and mirrors from politicians and power brokers. There will be folks profiting and folks paying more and getting less for it.

Anyways sir, I don't know much about much, but that is something of which I can speak personally.

All the best to you all as we head into the Christmas Season.

Dwayne

By the way, it's also humorous that, by and large, the majority of pulp, paper & lumber mills up here, seem to be US owned !

Ha, ha Dwayne !

You put it a lot more eloquently, than I.

Thank you.

Aces, you are too specific.
"American business"

They are only too quick to take our money(back, when we work for them)
Then sell off our jobs.
Then offer us foreign made, substandard merchandise, at ever increasing
prices while our wages have been stagnant. (Until recently)

Cash,
1, thing that won't increase with inflation. Wages for workers.


As to the OP?
There are so many issues and nits to pick,
I could act like a schizophrenic sniper in the center of a battle field.

So many are lasee fare capitalist, until hands off hurts them.

I can't help but laugh when those chickens come home to roost.
Kinda like when white collar jobs got cut for foreign workers.
Suddenly, we weren't hearing about educated. It was a travesty.
Wasn't that way when blue collars lost their jobs.

As to Jim, much of our meat is imported. Without labels.
They gotta tell you your trinkets are Chineese, but not that
your beef came from Mexico. (And Sukarne Mexican beef sucks)

We should tax any subsidized items imported.
Even if the subsidy is through currency manipulation.

But then, what we WE do about our subsidized ag products we want
to export?

Round and round.

Paul;
Good late afternoon to you sir, I hope you're all getting in on this heat wave we're getting and you and your fine family are well.

If I think about it for a bit, I could probably name 3 dozen people who I knew well enough that worked there.

When I was swinging a hammer for a living, one of the first houses we built was for the mill's manager and then I was friends with his son who was the manager when it closed.

I've still got a stack of Simmonds D2 planer blades in my shop from a buddy who was one of the planermen there, waiting to be turned into blades sometime in the future.

Here's a pair of my version of the Grohman done with Weyerhaeuser surplus D2 blades. The scales are California Bighorn winterkill.



As with most things, subsidies are typically not as simple and straightforward as they might initially appear.

Neither are tariffs or border closures.

When the BSE scare caused the medicine line shutdown of Canadian beef exports, scores of ranches up here went under.

As it turned out, there was never any BSE in BC, but that didn't matter.

Also it's worth noting that somewhere around 85% of our production went south, which accounted for less than 4% of their consumption.

Anyways, that was what was and this is what it is Paul.

But neither situation was simple and neither "solution" imposed by a governing body was that - a solution....

All the best to you all as we head into Christmas Season sir.

Dwayne

To You & Yours, as well Mate !

I knew a guy who worked in a Vernon BC mill.

I worked in the timber industry most of my life. If you didn't live through the tree huggers, corrupt government sales that deposits were accepted for and then stopped by some paid for judge. Money not returned for years. Families losing incomes, homes, with no future to look toward! Mills from mid California to Northern Washington. Closed!! The Crown timber subsidies supported by the Canadian government, pushed through the border, at cheap prices. As far as I'm concerned the Canadian timber should be banned from our country forever. F uck Canada as far as I'm concerned they became a communist government years ago, and are no friend of the United States. Rant over.

Jim;
Good afternoon sir, I hope you and your fine family had a decent day.

There used to be a couple up there but the Tolko mill was the largest I want to say?

Vernon has the reputation of being the "Surrey" of the Okanagan, which means the most crime and such.

It's a pretty city though with a rich ranching heritage. The O'Keefe Ranch was just outside of town to the north.

https://okeeferanch.ca/

All the best to you all as we head into the Christmas Season Jim.

Dwayne

BC30cal,
How do you turn those D2 blades into knives?
Forge or grind?
Do you heat treat them, or send them out?

Lets go Brandon!

For our Canadian campfire members.... that idiot in the White House that is screwing Canada over, is a fu^ king embarrassment...

why do democRats, get on their knees and spread their ass cheeks for Hispanic illegal aliens and the countries they came from, who give us nothing, but illegal aliens,
and demand free money from us....

then turn around and short sheet Canada, who are among the best friends this nation has....

God do I hate liberals/ democRats........but then again, the love anyone who screws this country over... because they hate our nation as much as anyone else in the world...

Apologies to Canada, if that is worth anything...

Dillonbuck;
Good evening to you sir, I hope the day behaved for you all out east and you're all well.

Because I've no access to heat treating equipment, at present I've been cold grinding them, which of course isn't the fastest or likely the best way to do it.

It's hard on abrasives too for sure, but if one is careful to have a big bucket of cold water there and keep the steel from discoloring it seems to work okay.

I'll note folks have said they're too brittle, but when I got this batch of blades, I put one in a vice and attempted to break it, then tried with great enthusiasm with a 22oz hammer to break it and didn't, so I figured it's not super brittle.

The ones in the photo I did with a disc sander as I was experimenting with a specific blade profile, which I more or less achieved, but it's tough to keep clean lines that way so those I was less satisfied with.

Thanks for the question, hopefully that answer made sense and all the best to you folks as we head into the Christmas Season.

Dwayne