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Forest Sector Praises Softwood Ruling
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By Mark Nielsen, Citizen Staff
The latest NAFTA panel ruling on the Canada-U.S. softwood lumber dispute is being hailed as a major breakthrough but one that will fall short of finally ending the long-running dispute.
"It’s the case-ending win that we were looking for where under the NAFTA rules and regulations, we have won an outright victory that should result, as it did 10 years, in the rescinding of the duty orders and the refund of our money," B.C. Lumber Trade Council
President John Allen said Wednesday.
However, he also noted that the U.S. Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports plans to take its case to the U.S. courts, arguing that NAFTA’s Chapter 19 dispute settlement system is constitutionally defective.
Allen doubted it will amount to much - the same action 10 years ago, made when U.S. lumber producers lost a similar extraordinary challenge, was dropped within a couple of months - but will buy some time for the coalition’s members.
"Their behavior is predictable," Allen said. He predicted it will take two years to settle that aspect of the dispute.
Prince George North MLA Pat Bell said it’s an "unequivocal, hands-down victory, there’s no question. So now, the only real question is, are the Americans for NAFTA or against NAFTA… It’s time for the Americans to write the cheque, open up the border and let the lumber start flowing the way it’s supposed to under a free trade arrangement as defined under NAFTA."
Brink Forest Products owner John Brink of Prince George said he is delighted with the ruling but added it’s just one more step in a long-running battle that will be put to rest only through negotiation.
In that respect, Brink said he hopes a border tax, as opposed to a volume quota system, will be used to temper exports into the U.S. market.
"A quota system is where a government would decide which companies would and would not get quota. It’s just not a good system," he said. "It does not allow for new entrants."
Brink said the secondary manufacturing sector has suffered at least as much as the primary producers under the U.S. sanctions, despite concentrating on value-added products rather than dimensional lumber.
"There are very few companies left standing in the secondary section," he said. "Brink is one of the few left standing in northern British Columbia."
There are nearly 300 people on Brink’s payroll.
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