Mr Emerson's Softwood Appeasement.....

......In Which Our Own Money Is Being Used Against Us

KillingUsSoftlyWithHisDeal
VancanforcouverKingswayVille

At the time, we were screaming mad about the $1,000,000,000.00 of our own money that was given away so that Mr. Emerson could bring his so-called 'peace in our time' to the Canadian Forest Industry.

Well, that industry, particularly in coastal British Columbia is pretty much dead and buried these days.

And the excuses that are most often given are the high Canadian dollar and slumping U.S. home starts.

What is rarely mentioned is the fact that the big nail in the coffin lid is that extra 15% tariff that has been slapped on wood going south since prices started dropping.

And what's worse, it now turns out that a big chunk of that $1,000,000,000.00 that we gave away to screw ourselves (at a time, don't forget, when we were winning just about everything in the courts and at the tribunals) is now being used against us.

Andrew McLeod has the story in a very fine piece in The Tyee:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Foreign Affairs and International Trade Minister David Emerson and B.C. Forest Minister Rich Coleman were among those who took credit in 2006 for ending the softwood lumber dispute with the United States.

But now it turns out much of the $1 billion the Canadian negotiators relinquished to the United States has been used to reward the American lumber industry and other friends of President George Bush's administration. Concerns the money would be used for a slush fund may well have been fulfilled.....

{snippety doo-dah}

Where the money went:

• $200 million to the U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities, an organization created to receive the funds and dominated by timber industry executives
• $150 million to the American Forest Foundation, which "promotes the interests of small forest landowners"
• $100 million to Habitat for Humanity
• $500 million to the Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports, the American lobby group that sparked the latest round in the softwood lumber dispute in the first place
• $50 million to the Bi-national Council, a pro-logging lobby group active in both the U.S. and Canada......

{snippety doodle-dandy}

"It was very sophisticated money laundering," (Peter) Goldman (of the Washington Forest Law Centre, or WFLC) said. "Canada was willing to participate with money laundering. Part of the deal was Canada would help the United States launder this money."

Or as the WFLC's spokeperson Kenan Block put it, "We believe Canada was either a willing or an unwitting partner in creating what's become a pro-timber industry slush fund in the United States."

All of which has us wondering if Mr. Emerson's middle name really is "Neville".

OK?


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