WALLAGRASS, Maine — Angry and frustrated with what they say is unfair competition from Canada, nearly 100 Maine loggers and truckers in northern Maine sounded off in a Friday afternoon meeting with Gov. Paul LePage, and the governor has promised to take steps.
Complaints about Canadians displacing Mainers in their own backyards go back more than 100 years. But back then, the beef was with Canadian loggers armed with heavy axes working from camps in the North Woods. Now it’s with the operators of heavy equipment that can do the work of several of those men, and with the truck drivers that shuttle what they cut back across the border.
“The big thing for us is trucking,” says Dana Doran, executive director of the Professional Logging Contractors of Maine. “There’s a lot of wood that’s coming across the border. There are a lot of trucking contractors that are bringing wood across the border, and that’s putting Mainers at a disadvantage.”
Mainers are at a disadvantage, Doran says, because they can’t work in the Canadian woods in the same way Canadians can work here. Then there’s the fact that Canadians are provided health care by their government and subsidies for their equipment. Factor in the strength of the U.S. dollar in Canada and it becomes an even bigger sore point.
Maine truck driver Jean Morin of Fort Kent says he’s watching more Canadian trucks come across the border every day, even as he’s been forced to idle his own.
“They laugh at us,” he says. “We’re the friggin’ stupid ones. And we’re paying taxes here and we’re living here.”
After 40 years of working in the logging industry in Maine, Morin told the governor that he and others have become a joke to the Canadian competition.
“I don’t disagree they laugh at us because they’re working and you’re not. I’m not going to defend them because that’s true,” says LePage, who pledged to do what he can to rectify the situation. “I will work with the legislators in this room to put a bill that will work for the Maine loggers. But I will tell you this: I cannot pass the bill.”
Legislators in the room included Democrats such as Senate Minority Leader Troy Jackson of Allagash, a fifth generation logger who has had several high-profile disputes with the governor in the past over logging issues.
“What we understand is that a Canadian can come over here and pick up a load and go back to Canada, but they can’t pick up a load and deliver in Maine — and that happens a lot,” Jackson says.
LePage says that if Jackson can name the companies, he would make sure his administration got involved.
“When they come into the U.S. and pick up and deliver in the U.S., that’s illegal.” LePage says.
But another man attested that Canadians had been doing it for years.
Maine loggers also complain that large landowners in Maine are violating federal rules designed to give preference to U.S. workers. The governor said there are some things he will follow up on right away.
Other issues are more complex and may require changes at the federal level, including with the North American Free Trade Agreement which is back at the negotiating table.
