The Globe and Mail reports in its Tuesday, Jan. 9, edition that Canada is defending provincial timber fees in hopes that a binational panel will compel the Trump administration to revoke punitive duties on Canadian softwood. The Globe's Brent Jang writes that British Columbia runs a market-based system of setting fees for producers to harvest trees on Crown land, says the Canadian government. Canada is appealing the punitive lumber duties introduced last year by going through the Chapter 19 dispute-resolution mechanism of the North American free-trade agreement. A binational panel under NAFTA is expected to be formed within months to review the 2017 decision by the U.S. Department of Commerce to impose countervailing and anti-dumping duties averaging 20.23 per cent against most Canadian lumber producers. B.C.'s system means competitive auctions drive what the provincial government collects from lumber firms for rights to chop down trees, Canada said in an 82-page document. The Trump administration believes that producers in B.C. are subsidized because they pay less for timber rights on Crown land than what firms pay to private timberland owners in the U.S. Pacific Northwest.