The New Brunswick forest industry is in melt-down mode. A combination of dwindling pulp and newsprint markets, a US housing slump, a growing Canadian dollar, high energy costs and third world competition is sucking the industry and its high paying jobs down the drain.

To some extent, we could see it coming. We’ve known, or should have known, for years that the days of wood fibre being most valuable in pulp for publishing were almost over. From the time someone hops in a half-ton to go to the woods to cut down a tree to the time a newspaper or flyer goes plop on your doorstep, a fearful amount of energy is used up.

Printing and publishing are quite labour-intensive too. Imagine you are in charge of flyer distribution in Calgary or Grande Prairie. Where and how are you going to get the people you need?

Daily newspapers also have to contend with the time between when they prepare a story and the time it reaches a reader. The world has developed an electronic nervous system. Young people are even developing an aversion to being responsible for the disposal of printed material.

It was quite predictable that media not subject to those challenges, TV, radio, the internet, would have an increasing advantage. Those industries face their own frightening challenges (fragmented audiences) but zooming energy costs are not among them.

The tree huggers arguing for maintaining the diversity of the Acadian boreal forest now appear to have been financially as well as ecologically wiser than government, industry and labour.

In the building supply part of the forest market, there are different but similar pressures. Oriented strand board has replaced plywood as a sheathing product. The steel industry has moved in on the stud market. New, much larger, OSB mills are being built in cheaper markets.

The current collapse of local industry hurts all local business. Forest industry employee wages have been the heart blood of the New Brunswick economy for longer than any of us has been alive.

First, and most seriously hurt, of course, are the mill and forest workers. It naturally bothers them to see wood they used to process sent out of province, out of country and even out off continent to provide wages for other workers. They would like to see all raw wood exports banned.

From a government perspective, there are a couple of problems with that. While they could ban harvesting on Crown Land, that would probably mean losing a lot of forest management money and employment from the lessees. Government would have a harder time telling a property owner he can’t sell his wood. Even if they could and did, that would add another waterfall to the torrent of lost income. Truckeres are just one huge example.

In the long run, I believe there will again be great value in the New Brunswick forests. If the Chinese and Indian markets continue to grow as they are, demand will build to the point where our wood will be precious for something.

In the short run, the prospects look grim and government will have to find a way to help as many displaced workers as possible tread water until some salvation can be found. Sadly, we will lose many trades people to other industries and regions in the meantime.

In the medium term, our small and species-specific mills will be obsolete and probably won’t be part of any renaissance.

The trick will be to develop a short, medium and long term plan to be ready for the next generation of opportunities.

One element must be to get as many people out of the industry as possible. Whatever is next will be more productive and won’t require as many people with the current skills.

Another element will be urgent diversification. I may be kidding myself because I love the Maritimes and the Miramichi so much but I believe we ought to be able to attract thousands of people to come here with money to retire or visit for six months at a time.

People with pensions that would be enviable here don’t have homes in Calgary. They live in apartments and are receiving letters from their landlords saying their rent is going up $1,000 per month. Surely they’d like to own a home here.

Snowbirds leave here for Florida every winter but they don’t stay there. No one wants to be in Florida between May and October. Many Floridians go to the mountains and hills of Mexico to escape the heat and humidity.

Surely we could enourage many of them to come here for six months. Their health insurers would love it because our medical care is so much cheaper, especially drugs. They could have lovely weather and the distinct possibility of being here the entire six months without being shot at by anyone!

Europeans can’t believe the value in residential land they find here.

New training for new skills, a return to the original diversity in the forest and the recruitment of immigrants could be elements of a hopeful future for this magnificent region.

On we go!

“Some people are waiting for their ships to come in who have sent none to sea.” — Hon. John Crosbie, on the occasion of the opening of the Miramichi ports after river dredging and the building of new wharves and warehouses in the then towns of Newcastle and Chatham.

“Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you help them to become what they are capable of being “- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“It is discouraging how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.” — Noel Coward

“The things that come to the man who waits are seldom the things he waited for.” — Bob Edwards, editor of the “Calgary Eye Opener”

“Success is when I add value to myself. Significance is when I add value to others.” John Maxwell

The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers. – Socrates (?) (469-399 B.C.)

Nothing concentrates a man’s mind so wonderfully as the knowledge that he is to be hanged in the morning. — (DAC paraphrase of Oscar Wilde)

A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular. – Adlai Stevenson

Some people would rather fight than win. – David Cadogan

There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as as if they had never happened before. – Willa Cather

There are only two things going on in the world. One is sex. The other is foreplay. – David Cadogan

If the only tool you have is a hammer, after awhile everything begins to look like a nail. – Abraham Maslow

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place. – George Bernard Shaw

Virtue gets a lot of credit that actually belongs to lack of opportunity. – Anonymous

A Christian is someone who is looking for someone else to crucify. – Dr. Roy Cole

All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular positions. — Adlai Stevenson

All we can hope for is that someone who loves us will put our playthings away as tenderly as they can . . . And our faults and foibles too. — Katherine Hepburn in “Keep the Flame” with Spencer Tracy

A compendium of observations from a lifetime in the community newspaper business.

1) Some people would rather fight than win.

2) Just about everything mankind does to cure a problem makes it worse.

Corollary: The experts are usually wrong.

Examples: Smaller families and better insulation led to bigger, not smaller houses. Corn for biofuel is leading to bigger agribusiness, more greenhouse gases and more poor and starving Latin Americans. It takes more BTUs of natural gas to get oil out of oil sands than there are BTUs in the oil retrieved.

3) There are some things you have no right NOT to know.

4) If there is a ferry, take it!

Corollary: If a road leads toward water, follow it.

5) The truth is often sensationalist, appalling and in very poor taste.

6) There is no such thing as non fiction.

Corollary: There are not two sides to every story. There are many.

Corollary: We all re-write our lives as we go along.

7) Legislation passed unanimously is almost always bad legislation.

Corollary: The truth is usually upstream, against the flow.

8) People usually get what they want. Corollary: The team that wins is the team that prepares to win.

Corollary: Luck is when preparation meets opportunity.

Corollary: The most important and lasting gift you can give anyone is the ability to take care of him or her self.

9) Happy people are usually getting some exercise and helping others.

Corollary: If you are depressed and lonely, try getting some exercise and joining a volunteer or service group of some kind.

10) To participate in a war, you should have to be over 65 and have a note from your mother.

11) The thicker the report, the less there is in it.

Corollary: A good way to hide embarrassing information is to include it in a very thick public report.

12) Problems are the mothers of opportunities.

Examples: Higher fossil fuel prices led to geothermal heating systems which are productive and renewable. Stock market investment fund managers say the cure for high prices is high prices.

13) There are only two things going on in the world. One is sex. The other is foreplay.

Seafood Gumbo

Serves 20 as an appetizer, 10 as an entrée.

Can be served as a thick soup or, over rice, as an entrée. I use shrimp, oysters, scallops, lobster, crab – whatever I can get in whatever amounts I can afford at the time. If andouille sausage is not available, use your favourite spiced sausage.

Garlic toast goes well with this dish AND be sure to have Tobasco Sauce and whatever other hot sauces you have on the table.

At times I haven’t been able to get okra or file powder. Use another thickening instead of okra and another seafood seasoning instead of file. It is worth going to considerable effort to get the proper ingredients.

Ingredients

• 1 cup vegetable oil ½ teaspoon fresh pepper
• 1/1/4 cups flour 2 tblspns filé powder
• 3 cups diced onions 1½ lbs. fresh or canned okra (Sobeys has great frozen okra)
• 2 cups diced green bell pepper 2 quarts seafood stock
• 6 medium tomatoes, diced 60 med. Shrimp (2 lbs.) cooked, peeled, deveined
• 1 cup tomato purée 24 freshly shucked oysters drained
• 1 ½ teaspoons thyme 1 lb. lump of crab meat
• 1 ½ tablespoons minced garlic 12 oz. lobster meat
• 4 bay leaves 1 lb. Andouille sausage, diced
• ½ teaspoon salt

Preparation

1) Shuck oysters, strain oyster liquor and add to stock

2 Heat vegetable oil in medium pot to allow room for whisking and enough depth of oil to avoid burning flour. Gradually sift flour into oil whisking constantly. Continue until roux is as dark as you dare – a deep burgundy brown. If you burn the flour, start over. It’s worth it. Set aside.

3) Combine onions, peppers, tomatoes, and tomato purée in an 8 quart heavy pot. (Don’t use cast iron. It will discolour okra.) Cook on medium heat for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

4) Add sausage, thyme, garlic, bay leaves, salt and pepper. Blend well and simmer for 10 minutes.

5) Add okra. When okra is bright in colour and is cooked but still crisp, add stock and roux. Bring to a rapid, rolling boil, then lower heat. Add shrimp, lobster, oysters and crab meat and simmer a very few minutes to your seafood taste.

6) Combine file powder with one cup of the soup. Remove gumbo from heat and stir in the file-soup mixture. Correct seasoning to taste.

7) Serve over rice

— David Cadogan

Carrot Ginger Soup

(David’s favourite – Yield: 8 Servings)

• 1/4 c Butter
• 2 md Onions; chopped
• 2 tb Grated peeled fresh ginger root
  (I recently discovered prepared bottled ginger root in the supermarket. Seems to takes more of it but eliminates root fibers.)
• 1 1/2 lb Carrots; peeled and thinly sliced
• 6 c Chicken stock
• 1/2 ts Salt
• 1/2 ts Black pepper

1. In 4 quart saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. Add onions and sauté until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add ginger root and cook 2 minutes longer.

2. Add carrots and chicken stock to onions; heat to boiling over high heat. Reduce heat to low, cover and cook carrots until tender, 15 to 20 minutes.

3. In blender, blend carrot mixture, in batches, until smooth. Return soup to saucepan and add salt and pepper. Heat soup over low heat until hot.

4. I add about a cup or so of milk (anything from skim to homo) or cream when I’m finished and strain it through a strainer and then a sieve to make it especially velvety and to remove any gingerroot fibers that make it into the soup. Adding the milk or cream makes the soup strain more easily and makes the soup more elegant in appearance and taste.

5. I rarely make just a single batch. When I make several and freeze, I add most of the milk or cream when I’m heating to serve.

There has been quite a lot of fuss lately from Newfoundland and Nova Scotia about federal government treatment of oil royalties and federal transfer payments.

In a nutshell, the provinces don’t want oil royalties to count as income when their transfer payments are calculated.

Some people say transfer payments represent the return of tax money remitted by Atlantic or other have-not provinces to Ontario and other wealthier provinces on purchases from the firms in the richer provinces. Those people say that the GST may be paid to Ottawa from Toronto, for example, but if the person who purchased the item lives in New Brunswick, the tax actually came from there and should be spent there.

A more common view in Ontario and Alberta is that transfer payments are simply a form of welfare transferred from the richest provinces to the poorer to enable the poorer to spend amounts somewhat equal to the richest provinces on basics like health and education.

From their point of view, the Maritimes want to keep all of the welfare cheques or employment insurance cheques after they’ve got a job.

Newfoundland and Nova Scotia say Prime Minister Harper’s Conservative government promised the oil money wouldn’t be counted. It has been known to happen that parties will, to win votes, make promises that aren’t always based on justice or even what the parties intend to do if they are elected. A promise may not necessarily be logical or just.

If there is a deeper, more complex, argument supporting the Newfoundland and Nova Scotia claims, I don’t yet know what it is. Perhaps someone will enlighten me.

What I do know is that the provinces seem to look at money they get from the feds as an entirely different kind of thing altogether than the money they pay out to their own citizens.

For decades single mothers, on welfare, have been trying to tell government that it would be a good idea to let them keep some of their welfare benefits, unemployment benefits, prescription drug benefits etc. after they got an entry level job or while they went back to university to acquire the educational qualifications that could get them off welfare and unemployment forever.

The same governments that have such a clear vision of how clawing back oil revenues will interfere with their progress to self sufficiency didn’t seem able to grasp the concept that confiscating all assistance to welfare recipients interfered with their attempts to become self sufficient.

Funny how they can see their case with such clarity and be blind to their own citizens identical request, isn’t it?

A simple solution

As a geezer, I have just become eligible to apply for the old age pension. When Paul Martin was Minister of Finance in the Chretien government, the feds engaged in various tough measures to balance the budget. One of them was to claw back the old age pension from rich people who didn’t really need that small safety net.

They do it by taxing back 15% of any portion of it that creates taxable income over $60,000 per year (adjusted now, for inflation to $63,511. For ease of demonstration, I’ll use the original base numbers. If you are a pensioner and your taxable income is $70,000, they take back 15% of 10,000 or $1,500 of your old age pension when you submit your tax return. If your taxable income is $90,000, they take back 15% of $30,000 or $4,500.

By the time your taxable income reaches the current adjusted rate of $102,865, they claw back all of the Old Age Security money they sent you during the year.

Isn’t that an extremely simple and, I think most of us would agree, very generous formula?

Why couldn’t a similar formula be applied to oil royalties for Atlantic provinces?

More to the point, why couldn’t, why isn’t, a similar formula devised to ease the transition of welfare families to self sufficiency?

Why is it that light passes one way only through the windows through which governments see the world?

In the autumn of 2005, Michelle and I spent seven weeks in Italy. I intend to post some stories and pictures about that here and will be happy to offer tips and to answer any questions I can.