Government Delivers On The Promise Of The Softwood Lumber Agreement

<a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/softwood_lumber/">http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/softwood_lumber/</a><br />
"Canada's protracted dispute with the U.S. over softwood lumber finally ended in April 2006 with an agreement that would require the U.S. to return about 80 per cent of the more than $5 billion in duties it had collected on lumber imports.<br />
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Thousands in the industry lost their jobs, including about 15,000 forestry workers who were laid off in British Columbia." <br />
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Lemme see now -- $5 billion goes to so-called Canadian companies (are they really Canadian?), and $470 million goes to the provinces.<br />
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Does ANY go to the estimated 35,000 laid off forestry & mills workers directly affected by the tariffs applied by the Yankees?<br />
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Furthermore, the "Canadian" companies didn't really suffer, as they made up any shortfalls by firing all those workers, while continuing to ship raw logs in record amounts south of the border. So they got this $5 Bil as a kind of "bonus". Now the provinces get about a half-bil. So what do the workers get, besides the shaft?<br />
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$470,000,000/35,000 = $13,400 (about 1/3 of the average annual Canadian salary)<br />
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Better yet:<br />
$5 Bil/35,000 = $142,800 (about 3-1/2 years average salary)<br />
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I would say the latter figure would be about right, to see some sort of justice served. But the Canadian government (both Libs and Cons) isn't really in the justice game, is it?<p>---<br>"When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change." <br />
-Max Planck<br />
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You make a convincing case as to why those lumber workers need a union.

*pfft*

I thought they had one. But, like most unions representing workers in the private sector, they are useless. The union bosses come from the same mold as politicians, and modelled after Jabba The Hut.

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"When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change."
-Max Planck