Close X
Friday, November 29, 2024
ADVT 
National

Let's make a deal, Canada urges U.S. amid latest 'baseless' softwood lumber duties

Darpan News Desk The Canadian Press, 27 Jul, 2023 04:54 PM
  • Let's make a deal, Canada urges U.S. amid latest 'baseless' softwood lumber duties

Canada is urging the United States to make a good-faith effort at negotiating an end to the interminable bilateral dispute over softwood lumber. 

International Trade Minister Mary Ng is making the overture after a fresh U.S. Commerce Department review maintained duties on softwood imports from Canada.

Ng says the duties, while modestly lower, remain an unfair, baseless and punitive measure that hurts the economy on both sides of the border. 

She says a negotiated settlement is the only way the two countries will ever fully resolve the decades-old dispute. 

Such a deal is unlikely: the U.S. has a fundamental problem with a regulatory regime in Canada that it says puts American producers at a disadvantage. 

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai has said the U.S. would be willing to negotiate, but only if Canada does away with its provincial stumpage fee system. 

"An immediate negotiated solution to this long-standing trade issue is in the best interests of both our countries," Ng said in a statement.

"Canada is disappointed that the United States is not meaningfully engaging in discussions on a return to predictable cross-border trade in softwood lumber." 

The Commerce Department established a combined "all others" duty rate of 7.99 per cent, only slightly less than the 8.59 per cent established after the last administrative review. 

Ottawa, meanwhile, will keep up the fight through the dispute resolution tools in the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the World Trade Organization and the courts in the U.S., Ng said. 

"The only fair outcome would be for the United States to cease applying these baseless duties." 

In Canada, lumber-producing provinces set so-called stumpage fees for timber harvested from Crown land — a system that U.S. producers, forced to pay market rates, say amounts to an unfair subsidy.

Federal officials in Ottawa have said Canada would never agree to implement such a fundamental change to the way a key Crown resource is managed before the two sides have even sat down.

 

MORE National ARTICLES

B.C. health registry expansion aims to connect patients with family doctors: minister

B.C. health registry expansion aims to connect patients with family doctors: minister
Health Minister Adrian Dix says the expanded Health Connect Registry, which launched July 1, aims to make it easier for B.C. patients to get a family doctor or nurse practitioner in their community by signing up for a primary-care provider.

B.C. health registry expansion aims to connect patients with family doctors: minister

Delta woman charged with fraud

Delta woman charged with fraud
31-year-old Tarndeep Uppal, of North Delta, has been charged with one count of theft of credit card and identity information. Fourteen counts of fraud under $5000. Uppal has been released with conditions not to possess credit cards, identification or data in any other name but her own.

Delta woman charged with fraud

B.C. officials warn of lightning-caused wildfires expected this week

B.C. officials warn of lightning-caused wildfires expected this week
Cliff Chapman, operations director for the BC Wildfire Service, said the lightning that's expected to be "widespread" across the province is more likely to hit higher, mountainous terrain, but strikes are also possible in or around communities.

B.C. officials warn of lightning-caused wildfires expected this week

Provincial climate action tax credit being distributed

Provincial climate action tax credit being distributed
The finance ministry says payments are set to arrive in the bank accounts of more than two million people after the province increased credit payments to help offset inflation.   

Provincial climate action tax credit being distributed

City councillor in Merritt, B.C., struck and killed in apparent hit-and-run: mayor

City councillor in Merritt, B.C., struck and killed in apparent hit-and-run: mayor
The mayor of Merritt, B.C., says a city councillor has been killed in an apparent hit-and-run crash outside another community. Mayor Michael Goetz says he understands Coun. Claire Newman had been on her way to meet her husband ahead of a planned trip to Alaska to visit an ailing friend.

City councillor in Merritt, B.C., struck and killed in apparent hit-and-run: mayor

RCMP officer says he forgot to record B.C. murder suspect's arrest after car crash

RCMP officer says he forgot to record B.C. murder suspect's arrest after car crash
The police officer who arrested a man accused of murdering a 13-year-old girl found dead in a Burnaby, B.C., park six years ago says no recording of the arrest exists because he forgot to switch on his recorder when a police car crashed into another vehicle at the scene. 

RCMP officer says he forgot to record B.C. murder suspect's arrest after car crash