Buzz Lein Writes About
: Prosperity, November 7, 1973
Prosperity in Northwestern Ontario is directly dependent on
the availability of wood fibre. Without it, there would be a dramatic and
catastrophic change in the economic climate.
There would be no Marathon, Terrace Bay would vanish, Red Rock would
again be a section house, Thunder Bay would assume depression status, Dryden
would be a ghost town.
Wood fibre isn’t of any use until such a time as it has been
torn apart and put back together again in a commercially desirable form,
whether it be Kraft paper of grocery bags, bleached pulp for further processing
or two by four’s for construction purposes.
It is this tearing apart and putting together again that is the heart of
Northwestern Ontario ‘s economic prosperity.
Trees have to be cut down, limbed and cut into manageable
sized logs. Logs have to be transported to the place of utilization and every
step of the way there are costs added to costs until by the time a log gets to
a mill its value has augmented from nothing to a considerable something. And, of all the labour required to move wood
from stump to the mill, 65% of it is used in cutting the tree down, taking the
limbs off it, moving it out to a road, and cutting it up into logs that are to
be hauled away. The cost of woods’
labour in Northwestern Ontario Is
reported to be the highest in the world, so that when this is related to the
labour content of tree processing, it has a very sad effect on the profit
margins that the wood fibre processor must have.
And, it is this profit margin which pays for increased sales
taxes, wages, all Government socialized benefits, increases in transportation,
increases in the cost of raw material of all kinds. For some mystifying reason, Canadians still
think they get all these things for nothing and from huge profit laden
companies with head offices in Utopia.
It is an axiom that the hungry wolf runs the fastest and the
farthest. Because companies need more fibre than manual labour can (or will)
produce, means must be found to augment the manual methods of harvesting with
mechanical methods. And, it is only when all wood fibre users get into a short
labour supply situation that an effort will be made to run farther and faster
in the direction of mechanical harvesting.
It is also sadly true that they will be all running in different
directions and over different length courses.
The need for mechanical harvesters is imperative, urgent and
here now. Wood fibre producers have to mechanize or they are not going to
survive. It is as simple as that. And,
they no longer have years and years to develop these machines.
The importance of having more and better harvesting
equipment in the woods is more than obvious.
This equipment is a survival kit for wood fibre producers if they are to
maintain their economic well being. If
this same equipment can be developed and
made in Canada, then it will help our Canadian economy.
It looks very much as if what is ahead is a lack of fibre
for the mills. This lack will come about
in two ways. One will be a lack of
reserve fibre available and there isn’t much that can be done about this. The
other lack will be due to an inability
to supply the machinery and people needed to harvest the crop. It doesn’t make any difference to a machine
whether or not the trees are numerous, scarce, tall, short, limby, branchy, or
anything else. It will do exactly as its
operator directs. Yet all these things have an effect, usually adverse, on the
production of manual workers. If there are not enough manual workers to make up
for the lack of harvesting machines, then there will not be enough fibre
produced at a reasonable enough price and then all consumers suffer.
Mills can make paper (or lumber, or pulp) from high cost
fibre. They cannot make a product of any
kind from no fibre at all.
There is now and there always has been a need for
wood-harvesting equipment. The financial success of it depends on it being a
better than average product, backed up by a better than average service with
better than average customer relations. Any piece of equipment can be sold
under conditions like these. It is
surprising how many equipment manufacturers seem to forget these rules after
they get a product well underway.
It is too bad, really, that wood harvesting has to be
carried on in remote areas where people are few, biting insects are numerous,
and the places have unpronounceable names along with unforgiveable extremes of
climate.
The development of
successful tree harvesting equipment in Eastern Canada is dependent upon the
success of a shock treatment from some external force. The first part of the
shock is here – the labour shortage. The
second part will come when fibre producers suddenly become aware that not
enough is being done in the area of mechanical harvesting.
There is also a third part of this shock. It is frequently fatal and will come with the
sudden awareness that planning has not been done well and that fibre processing
plants will have to close because there is no way to supply them.
It could happen here.
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