Letters to the Editor
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A few clarifications.
50% of building lumber and sheathing used in the U.S. does not come from Canada. Best figures I could come by without really getting into this is that the U.S. imported 9 billion BF of lumber Canada in the first six months of 2007. However, the U.S. produced almost 49 billion BF of lumber in 2006.
Depending on where you live in the country, you're using different lumber for framing. Most of the South from Florida to Texas is using plantation raised Southern Yellow pine, both for framing and sheathing. On the West Coast it's probably Hem-Fir from California, Oregon and Washington. The NE and upper Midwest may be getting lumber from Canada, but most of the house building in the country has been happening in the Sun Belt and in the West.
What you find coming from Canada primarily are Western Red cedar, chip products (OSB and Timberstrand). Otherwise . . .
As to the pine beetle, if it's destroying lodgepole pine forests in Canada, that's not "fiber" destined to be used in stick framing to begin with, unless it's chipped and becomes OSB. Lodgepole pine does not have the structural properties needed to be milled into framing lumber.