Last year COFI pledged 100% support for the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST); that support remains in place today and for the future.

 

BC has an export based economy.  Wealth is created through the development and export of forest products, coal, minerals, natural gas and other resources.

International competition is fierce and our current GST and PST (provincial sales tax) places us at a distinct competitive disadvantage.

While prices for most resource commodities, including forest products, are now higher than they were last year, full economic recovery in the forest industry is a few years away largely because the U.S. housing market is still plagued with financial difficulties.  At the same time the Canadian dollar has reached parity with the U.S. dollar, eroding in part recent forest product price appreciation.

So the bottom line message is that we must be cost competitive if we are to maintain and grow market share.  If we can do so then the industry will continue to provide employment and incomes for thousands of workers in dozens of communities.  It’s that simple.

So will the HST increase some consumer costs?  Yes. But will it greatly assist economic prosperity, job creation and wages?  Absolutely.  The HST deserves support.  Your ability to be a consumer is certainly compromised if you are not employed.

 John Allan

An agreement signed recently between the governments of China, Canada and British Columbia will further promote and adapt wood-frame technology to meet China’s growing demand for energy-efficient, climate-friendly housing, announced the Honourable Christian Paradis, Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources, and B.C. Forests and Range Minister Pat Bell.

“Advanced Canadian wood-frame construction systems are proven winners when it comes to reducing carbon emissions,” said Paradis. “This agreement will help China adapt our systems to their unique needs and, in the process, open up the Chinese market to more Canadian lumber and wood products.”

“Six-storey apartment buildings are the most common form of accommodation in China,” said Bell. “The agreement we have reached is to pursue a six-storey, wood-frame demonstration structure in Beijing. To develop this sector of the Chinese housing market would mean billions more board feet of B.C. lumber going to China every year.”

The agreement is based on a memorandum of understanding signed with the Chinese Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development. It calls for collaborative research and development of wood-frame building systems designed to meet China’s demand for energy-efficient construction with a low-carbon footprint.

The working relationship covers five years and includes a commercially developed, six-storey building in Beijing to demonstrate wood-frame design to Chinese developers, officials, and consumers. A joint working committee will be established under the MOU to coordinate implementation. The agreement also includes sharing expertise and producing technical standards for wood-frame construction in China.

Bell signed the agreement while in Beijing on a trade mission to promote sales of B.C. wood products in China. Senior executives of the forest sector accompanied Bell on the trip.

China is the fastest growing export market for Canadian wood products, with most of the lumber sourced from British Columbia. In 2009, B.C. lumber exports to China reached 1.63 billion board feet, double the volume of 2008, and valued at $328 million.

More than 300 design and building professionals, including architects, engineers, project teams and industry sponsors along with BC Premier Gordon Campbell and speaker Patrick Moore gathered on March 29 to honour the nominees and winners of the 2010 Wood WORKS! BC Wood Design Awards. The 6th annual awards evening in Vancouver recognized leadership and innovation in wood use while being an opportunity to publicly salute and encourage continued excellence in the building and design community.

Wood WORKS! is a national industry-led initiative of the Canadian Wood Council, with a goal to support innovation and provide leadership on the use of wood and wood products. Wood WORKS! BC provides education, training and technical expertise to building and design professionals involved with non-residential construction projects throughout BC.

There were more than 100 nominations in 12 categories for the 2010 awards from all over BC and one from the Yukon. "The awareness and appreciation for wood is growing at an unprecedented rate," explains Wood WORKS! BC executive director Mary Tracey. "As world attention focuses on our environment, wood continues to gain momentum as its environmental attributes are recognized."

"We're seeing wood used in unique and innovative ways both architecturally and structurally which showcase its beauty, strength, versatility and cost effectiveness. The increasing variety, diversity and sheer number of projects using wood is without a doubt building the already burgeoning wood culture in BC," she adds. The nominated projects ranged from a wood-signature school to a world-class private resort where wood connects the architecture to the powerful landscape. There were new buildings and renovations, using new timber, engineered wood products, reclaimed wood and Cross Laminated Timber (CLT).

The panel of five judges include Kent Fargey, President of Western Archrib; Michael Green, Principal, mcfarlane l green l biggar Architecture + Design; Dr. Robert Kozak, Professor, Faculty of Forestry at UBC; Oliver Neumann, Associate Professor, School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at UBC; and Thomas Williamson, Managing Partner, T. Williamson Timber Engineering LLC.

BC Premier Gordon Campbell presented the Premier's Wood Champion Award to Castlegar-based Kalesnikoff Lumber Company. "This family business has survived the ups and downs of economic swings for more than 65 years, and throughout it all has managed to provide a high quality wood product," says Mary Tracey.

A new category this year is the Wood Innovation Award, which recognizes creative and innovative approaches in the use of wood in building design, product design and/or processes. Eighteen nominations were received in this category, and the winner is structural engineer Robert Malczyk at Equilibrium Consulting Inc. for Austria House, built for the 2010 Olympic Games in Whistler. It features the first Canadian application of Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) panels.

The Green Building Award went to Jess & Nicolas Meyer of Nico Spacecraft for "the new but historic workshop" in Roberts Creek. The jury noted that "it was equipped with all the ingenuity of someone who rolled up their sleeves and asked what was needed to be done to get it done". The cedar siding for the south wall was milled from on-site trees that had to be removed for safety due to rot. Other harvested wood products were used because of their sustainability attributes.

The BC Ferries Departure Bay Passenger Facility in Nanaimo is the winner in the Commercial Wood Design Award category sponsored by COFI. Designed by Clive Grout Architect Inc., the desire was to introduce a signature material to the landside facilities, symbolic of the land and mountains of coastal BC. The architect found wood to be an excellent choice in this public works project.

Darryl Condon of Hughes Condon Marler Architects won the Architect Award with the stunning design of the Whistler Public Library in Whistler. The jury noted that Mr. Condon "consistently uses wood in an elegant matter". The Whistler Public Library is no exception. The library picks up on the drama of the surrounding mountains while promoting the community's sustainable development ambitions.

Paul Fast of Fast + Epp Structural Engineers, known internationally for leading-edge work on many projects, including the Richmond Oval, is the recipient of the Engineer Award. The jury's decision was based on a landmark bridge - the Kingsway Pedestrian Bridge in Burnaby. Although technology used in this project has been available for some time in Europe, the bridge features the first Canadian application on a permanent foundation. This project stands as a Canadian pioneer for the use of innovative and emerging utilization of Cross Laminated Timbers (CLT) as structural elements in North America.

Winners in the wood design categories include:

• Residential Wood Design: Shuswap Cabin, Celista - Nigel Parish, splice design
• Multi-Unit Residential Wood Design: The Outback, Vernon - Kevin Ryan,         Coast Architectural Group
• Western Red Cedar: First Peoples House, University of Victoria, Victoria - Alfred Waugh, Alfred Waugh Architect
• Interior Beauty Design: Kwantlen Polytechnical University Gathering Place, Surrey - Brian Wakelin, Public Architecture and Communications
• Institutional Wood Design (less than) $10M: Crawford Bay Elementary-Secondary School, Crawford Bay - Witmar Abele, KMBR Architects         Planners Inc.
• Institutional Wood Design(greater than) $10M: Gateway Lodge-Long Term Care Facility, Prince George - Jerry Doll, Neale Staniszkis Doll Adams Architects

In his speech, Premier Gordon Campbell paid tribute to the building and design professionals attending the awards event, stating that when specifying wood in projects, their decisions have far-reaching benefits for everyone in BC. "When we build with wood in our communities and across our province, it's not just a smart building choice - it's also a statement on our history and the values of sustainability and green building we share," states BC Premier Gordon Campbell. "Wood is simply the world's best building product. It's visually appealing, versatile, sturdy, takes less energy to build with and is the only construction material that actually sequesters carbon. The leadership shown by individuals and organizations who champion wood construction is critical as we spread the word throughout Canada and beyond about the benefits of building with wood."

"Wood WORKS! BC is proud to support professionals in our design and building community as they specify natural, beautiful, sustainable and renewable wood for design and construction," concludes Ms. Tracey. "We salute them for showing the province, the country and the world what can be done with BC wood through their distinguished accomplishments."

For further information: about the winning entries and professional photos of the projects, please contact: Mary Tracey, Executive Director, Wood WORKS! BC, mtracey@wood-works.ca or 1-877-929-9663 ext 1, cell: (250) 864-1344.

BUILDING SOUTHERN INTERIOR FOREST EDUCATION
For more than fifteen years, Southern Interior Forest Education has grown, from one Okanagan forest educator employed in the early 1990's to six forest educators working throughout the Southern Interior by 2004/2005. This growth resulted from the hard work and vision of two now-retired Okanagan forest educators, Jeannie Steele and Deb Sluggett, and their belief in promoting local forest industry funding for additional forest educators to develop regional programs, based on the Okanagan model.

Debbie and Jeannie's motto, "the cost of education is less than the price of ignorance", emphasized the value and importance of promoting knowledge and understanding about our forest resource and the forest industry to students and community members. The message was unbiased and factual, delivered through teacher resource development, school and conference workshops, displays, career fairs, field and mill tours, guest speakers, student camps, National Forestry Week school presentations and the development of the Interior Logging Association's forest education van, an invaluable teaching tool for bringing the forestry message to BC schools, kids' camps, provincial parks and community events.

FOREST EDUCATOR NETWORK DECLINES

This year, the number of forest educators working in the Southern Interior has decreased, with only West Kootenay and Thompson forest educators beginning last September. Forest educators in the Okanagan-Columbia, East Kootenay and Cariboo zones were not rehired, due to a lack of available local industry funding and cutbacks to available government grants. Both the Thompson and West Kootenay educators were forced to terminate their programs two months after the fall start-up, leaving only COFI Forest Education operating in the Southern Interior.

COFI SOUTH FOREST EDUCATION ACTIVITIES
Despite the absence of Southern Interior forest educators, COFI Forest Education has continued  in its effort to maintain the visibility of forest education through participating in career fairs, creating Learn Forestry newsletters and managing website maintenance, overseeing the hiring and training of the ILA forest education van's summer student, developing new visual displays, hosting forest education booths and the forest education van at community events and providing educators with forest education resources. As well, COFI South Forest Education once again provided assistance with 2010 Environmental Mind Grind study packages and question sets for school competitions in April and May to determine Elementary, Middle and Secondary team winners.

ILA FOREST EDUCATION VAN ON TOUR
A post-secondary forestry student will be hired by the Interior Logging Association this spring to act as a student host with their popular forest education van, working from May through August. The Victoria Day weekend will see the van on display at Kaslo Days, along with spring appearances at schools and communities around the Okanagan. Throughout the summer, the van will travel to local provincial parks, kids' camps and Southern Interior events, in its mandate to educate all ages about our forest resource and the value of the forest industry to our province.

Watch for the June edition of the Learn Forestry News, which will be posted online at www.learnforestry.com, showcasing events, programs, resources and activities related to forest education in BC and beyond. View the website to access past newsletters, new forest education teaching resources and many other forest education links and educational materials.

For further information on Southern Interior Forest Education, please contact Debbie Bazett at (250) 860-9663 or bazett@cofi.org.

The Canadian Home Builders Association of the North, Commercial Council of the B.C. Northern Real Estate Board, Prince George Construction Association, and the Business Peace Cariboo Publication are hosting the 2009 Northern Building Awards.

We will be recognizing the best in Residential and Commercial Building in all of Northern BC. There are over two dozen residential and about ten commercial categories.

April 29th at 6pm at the Ramada Hotel Downtown Prince George at 444 George Street. Starts at 6pm, dinner at approximately 7pm and awards commencing at about 8pm.

For more information please contact either Sharon Slager, Executive Officer of CHBA-NBC at (250) 563-3306 or email sislager@shawcable.com
or Dorothy Friesen at (250) 563-1236 or Konrad Schmid-Meil at (250) 395.2233 or email bcncc@bcnreb.bc.ca.

The International BioEnergy Conference and Exhibition in Prince George is the Canadian leader in the global dialogue on bioenergy. With the addition of the BC Bioenergy Network as Conference Co-Host, the tradition of leadership and excellence will continue on June 8, 2010.

We are also happy to announce that the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, along with the Northern Bioenergy Partnership, will co-host the 2nd International Partnerships Forum and Business to Business Meetings. This will provide a suitable platform for all the participating BioEnergy companies to showcase their renewable energy systems and solutions.

And 2010 will also mark the introduction of a parallel conference on emerging clean technologies and new alternative energy solutions.

For more information go to the website: 
www.bioenergyconference.org/

This April 28th, please take a pause in your workday to observe a moment of silence for those workers who have lost their lives as a result of work-related accidents or occupational diseases.

Every year, WorkSafeBC, along with the B.C. Federation of Labour and the Business Council of British Columbia, co-host a public ceremony to remember workers who have lost their lives as a result of work-related accidents or occupational diseases.

This year, the Day of Mourning ceremony will be held on Wednesday, April 28, 10:30 a.m., at the Vancouver Convention Centre. Families, workers, employers, and other interested parties are invited to attend.

For more information about the event, a toolbox meeting guide, order decals or posters, or find a list of ceremonies around the province, visit the WorkSafeBC website:  www.worksafebc.com/news_room/campaigns/day_of_mourning/default.asp.