21 Replies to “The Trump Whisperer Could Not Be Reached For Comment, a continuing series…”

  1. Pierre should continue antagonizing and criticizing Trump. Surely that is where future success lies.

    1. Not real sure what Pierre has to do with it….but if it blows your hair back…..

      1. Perfectly put Joey. Pierre P. hasn’t anything to do with that … or anything else for that matter.

      2. Perhaps this excerpt from the article at the link (above) helps…
        “Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre called the increased duties “Unjust. Unfair. Unwarranted.” in a post to X on Friday.”

  3. Hardest hit? Spotted owls of the Sothern OR/Northern CA softwood forests. However, something tells me they’ll find a way to survive. They’ll just MOVE … fly away … to another tree. Or move into my neighborhood that is overrun with rats.

  4. Canada won this one several times at the WTO before the US just chose to ignore it. The costs to the lumber companies are many times what they pay to the government. In Alberta lumber and oil companies build and maintain their own roads. Public roads in the bush are 50 to 100 miles apart and the rest are private roads. Every little creek on every logging road has a bridge set on pilings. Reforestation is a company expense. Replanting at a density far exceeding mother nature is a requirement. The problem is the Canadian forestry industry went full on mechanized 30 to 40 years ago. All logging, delimbing, loading, and transport is done by million dollar machines. Mills tend to be huge with logs flying through in a single pass at high speed. As you drive through the US you still see a mom and pop logging industry. That doesn’t exist in Canada. Instead of keeping up the US chose to drag Canada down.

    1. I know the issue between Canada and the USA has a long history (at least back to the early 1980s). I assume from all of this “background” information that you work (or worked) in the Canadian softwood lumber industry. So thanks for this.

      But I would appreciate some kind of “bottom line” information for comparison purposes. Maybe this isn’t the right comparator, and I understand that there would be a zillion assumptions required, but, for example, what is the net amount that Canadian taxpayers pay or receive per thousand (or million or whatever) board feet of 2x4s in my local Home Depot versus how much USA taxpayers pay or receive for the same quantity and quality of 2x4s in a local HD across the border?

      2. This dispute goes back to the middle of the 19th century when Canada more or less stopped granting Crown land in Ontario. Other than railway land grants, mining, and agriculture from Homesteading in the west, the vast majority of land in Canada remains Crown owned (Indians have greater expectations thanks to the SCOC) at 89%. The US Lumber industry resented that they had to purchase forest land while their Canadian counterparts did not. The 40% of US forests that the feds and states own (responsible for only 9% of their annual harvest) can be more or less compared to Canadian provinces which each have their own systems but thanks to NGOs and decades of ongoing litigation the US national forest returns a loss to the US treasury despite higher stumpage than what Canadians pay. BC, for example now matches the US for net provincial loss as they now give away 75% of their stumpage revenue to the Indians and the remaining 25% doesn’t cover the administration of the forest service. The sociological effects are toxic to the industry and BC, with a productive capacity 3 times that of Alberta now harvests what Alberta does. Region 6 of the USFS (pacific northwest), thanks to the greens significantly reduced their harvest 35 years ago which inspired the latest waves of protectionism which is now a permanent fixture. As a result, some of the largest lumber producers in the US are now companies from BC (Canfor, West Fraser, and Interfor). Despite BC doing everything it could to screw up its forest industry by going from a cut of over 80 million cubic metres when I started my career to now 29 million cubic metres, the US lumber lobby, thanks to the Trumpster is as aggressive as ever.

        1. I have hiked and camped the mountains rising above the BC inlets, from below to above tree line. I have hiked through the nastiest slash and burn stumpage I have ever seen in Canada. Clear cut forests with no replanting, no reforestation. It made me sad to witness how any country could treat their forest land as so disposable.

          And I was raised to believe Canada was “greener” and “cleaner” than the USA. There’s no education quite like REALITY to wake one up from the mis-education they’d received.

          1. Well, Kenji, I planted trees all over BC in the 1970s and early 80s and have seen clear cuts all over the province. There most certainly is a planting and reforesting industry here.
            About 280 million trees were planted in BC in 2024.
            You may have hiked areas that were yet to be planted.
            By the way, I am in my late 60s and suffer war wounds from those days. Tough job, especially planting steep terrain with 50 pounds of trees in the bags.

          2. You sound like your fellow californicating comrades in the Sierra Club pimping hysteria for fun and profit. Reforestation has been the law since before I started work in the woods in the early 70s. Some tenures relied on natural regeneration which can take longer than plantations. “Stumpage” is a fee charged by the owners of the timber to those buying it “on the stump” not usually a description of post harvest viewscapes by overly sensitive urbanites.

          3. Well … perhaps this was clearcutting that someone decided to “leave natural” to experimentally regrow on its own. There were fallen logs and branches littering the entire forest floor, amid giant stumps. Had to climb up and down, through, under and around a horrible hellscape of dead forest. Worst hiking experience of my life. I can point it out on a map if you like. When we get that beer.

          4. I’ve spent plenty of time crawling over such terrain. Pity the foresters doing regen surveys or the tree planters traversing the whole block. Prescribed burning made it so much easier back when it was in vogue.

          5. I was one of those pitiful planters on such terrain. The burned and scarified blocks were better but sure made you look like a miner at day’s end.

    2. Question
      Who benefits from the status quo?
      Mom and Pop, or those in the Laurentian club?

  5. It’s the same excuse the Americans have been using for 43 years. In truth, it’s a scheme to enrich American lumber companies at the expense of everyone else, the American consumer most of all.

    1. It’s always the same in forestry and lumbering disputes. Hence the expression, “plank’s constant”.

  6. Did a quick check on Home Depot – Canada vrs the US costs the same meaning with currency exchange the US consumer is being hosed 30% to save the spotted owl and fund ENGOs. This is what Trump is supporting?
    Hmmm, maybe set up an export marketing board setting minimum prices with the US importer paying the tariff. I love irony in the morning.
    Oh and ban the export of round logs – bring the jobs home!

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