BC lumber group says duty is 'mockery' of Canada/US trading relationship

The BC Lumber Trade Council is warning Canadians that workers, businesses and communities dependent on our country's $10 billion softwood lumber industry are now facing an even greater threat to their economic future as a result of a new provisional anti-dumping rate announced by the US. All softwood lumber exports from Canada to the US now face a crushing combined duty of 31.88% as a result of the new 12.58% anti-dumping rate added to the arbitrary provisional countervailing rate of 19.3% announced on August 10, 2001. "Thousands of jobs have been lost already and thousands more will be lost unless our two nations find a way to resolve this dispute once and for all," said John Allan, president of the BC Lumber Trade Council.

"The US lumber industry is making a mockery of the greatest and most mutually beneficial trading relationship in the world." "Once again, we are witnessing a small but well-financed lobby of the US lumber producers pulling the levers of America's trade laws in a never-ending quest to drive Canada's top resource industry into the ground," Allan said. "Now more than ever, citizens on both sides of the border must call for a halt to this blatant protectionism. It is killing Canadian jobs, businesses and communities and the pocketbooks of US consumers and homebuilders," Allan added. Dumping laws are to be enforced when products are sold by one country -- in another country -- at lower prices than had the product been sold in the country of origin. In this case, there is absolutely no question that the opposite is true. In fact, as a result of the softwood lumber agreement, the price of Canadian lumber in the US has been significantly higher than the price of that same lumber in Canada.

 The facts show that the US industry request for an anti-dumping duty is arbitrary and completely without foundation. As Canada demonstrated in a detailed filing in June 2001, the petition in this case is grossly deficient and does not meet US or WTO legal standards. As a result, this anti-dumping investigation should never even have been initiated by the DOC. In its preliminary decision, the DOC is only able to find alleged dumping by applying arbitrary and unreasonable methods of price and cost comparison that are wholly inconsistent with international standards. The BC Lumber Trade Council is the voice for companies in British Columbia representing the majority of BC lumber production while its member companies account for about half of Canadian lumber production and half of Canadian lumber exports to the US.