Chapter 1

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2002/12/14/softwood_mill021214.html

As we all know, land is scarce. This also limits space on our world for growing objects such as trees. Complications such as global warming are causing more and more forest fires and this only creates more shortage of trees for production of lumber.

This article revolves around a small British Columbia lumber town. They are fighting for their survival with workers losing their jobs. In the town of Clearwater, more than 180 workers are being laid off, which is nearly a fifth of the small town’s workforce. The reason for such a tragic story? Blame it on the high US lumber duty which has made it impossible for the mill to keep running. So many residents are moving out to search for jobs that even an elementary school is due to close down in May.

This article relates to scarcity. Lumber and the industry is a limited resource, therefore causing price to increase. The US however, is not helping by instating a duty fee which has made many lumber industries to lose business. Clearwater is a perfect example of what is going on. Industries are actually shutting down instead of expanding on a scarce resource such as lumber. British Columbia is actually one of the few places with abundant trees, but the problem is that our main export is the US. What we should be profiting on is actually losing money. The forestry industry is not profiting as much as it potentially can and the high US duty fees are causing minor lumber towns to close their main source of income and drive them out of business.

This is a real problem that is affecting the Canadian economy. What this means is Canadians will have to pay even higher on lumber because they cannot control where to export their own resource. If lumber is scarce to begin with, this problem is going to make it worse. Since production is decreasing, this makes the country have less of the product. If the product is scarce, the price will jump even higher. However, not only scarcity affects our economy in this situation. It is like a vicious cycle that is affecting the Canadian economy negatively. Since lumber mills have to close down their production, this creates a higher unemployment rate. Those who are unemployed now have no income and cannot use money to put back to the system to keep our economy running smoothly. So, this issue is hurting Canadians in more than one way.