The Globe and Mail reports in its Wednesday, Oct. 19, edition that the one-year standstill period
for launching trade action
under the 2006 Canadian-U.S.
softwood lumber agreement has
now expired. The Globe's guest columnist Peter McKenna writes that a
very damaging timber war is set to
begin, with the chances of an early lumber
truce being slim to none.
Washington's principal objection
has always been Canada's
forestry-management practices
and its use of
low cost stumpage fees on trees
harvested on Crown land. It
maintains, wrongly according to
several previous dispute tribunal
rulings, that
Canada unfairly subsidizes its
softwood lumber sector -- to the
detriment of uncompetitive U.S.
sawmills.
Unfortunately, these mill owners
have friends in the corridors
of power in the White House
and the U.S. Congress.
The U.S. lumber
lobby will be moving swiftly to
launch a case against Canada for
unfair trade practices and for the
imposition of stiff import duties/tariffs against Canadian softwood in five or six
months.
It will follow that up with
some unreasonable demands on
the Canadian government to
curtail substantially lumber
exports to the U.S. marketplace.
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