Weyerhaeuser Defends Awarding of Contracts

Weyerhaeuser Defends Awarding of Contracts

Tuesday, August 19, 2003 at 12:59

 

 

 

A provincial forestry giant is defending the way it hands out harvesting contracts to independent loggers in the North.

 

The forestlands manager for Weyerhaeuser, Stan Holmes, says the company is under no obligation to grant contracts to operators it doesn’t know or feel comfortable with.

 

Recently, a group of independent operators in the North expressed concern with the way the procedure was carried out — noting that a lot of contractors had been forced out of business in the last few years.

 

However, Holmes maintains there are a number of factors to consider when tendering deals, and the business isn’t as simple as it used to be.

 

Holmes claims Weyerhaeuser deals with sixty or seventy different operators already, and has to watch its bottom line for the safety of the company.

 

Holmes also says awarding a timber allocation to the independent northern contractors, as suggested by a northern contractor recently, wouldn’t make much sense business-wise.

 

The independent loggers are calling on Northern Affairs Minister Buckley Belanger to level the playing field.