BC’s Forests Minister says there are no plans to make any changes to stumpage in the province.

Doug Donaldson was speaking on NL Newsday after announcing $69 million in funding to help those affected by the forestry crisis.

He says intervening politically at this time would make the problem worse.

“What stumpage reflects today is a market based system and that’s based on not just lumber prices which are depressed from 18 months ago, but also reflect log prices,” he said. “In other words, what people are willing to buy logs at. And because it’s a decrease supply and demand is there, those log supply prices are still high.”

Stumpage is a fee paid by companies when they harvest timber from Crown land. The government calculates stumpage on an annual basis, and the BC Liberals have been calling on the government to reduce stumpage until market conditions stabilize.

But Donaldson also noted that it’s a very dicey situation because he says the Americans will argue that Canada is subsidizing the industry, if any changes are made.

“We have the possibility that if we initiate a more timely calculation when it comes to stumpage on the log price side, it could make conditions worse because log prices are very high right now,” Donaldson noted.

“So we have to make sure that what we are going through right now is maintained and it reflects the market price system, which it does.”

He says the system works well because it wins B.C. court cases against the United States when it comes to softwood lumber disputes.