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Cut Lumber Deal Now: Brink
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CUT LUMBER DEAL NOW: BRINK
Prince George Citizen - February 6, 2003
By Gordon Hoekstra, Citizen Staff
It’s critical a deal is reached to resolve the softwood lumber dispute in this latest round in Washington, D.C., otherwise Canada has little choice but to pursue its lengthy legal fight, Brink Forest Products president John Brink said Wednesday.
“Soon the focus will be on war in Iraq, and then you’ll be into the election window again,” said Brink, an often outspoken advocate of the Northern Interior forest sector.
Brink said fighting the 27-per-cent U.S. tariffs on Canadian lumber at the World Trade Organization or under the North American Free Trade Agreement is not the best option because B. C. companies would suffer too much while the legal fight dragged on for years.
Since the B. C. government is already set on introducing policy changes to increase market competition and introduce logging rights reform, those could also form the basis for a “progressive” solution to the trade dispute, said Brink.
“British Columbia has shown courage, in my opinion, to introduce changes to forest policy, not for the sake of satisfying the Americans, but which are simply the right way to go,” said Brink. “This will change the B.C. industry dramatically for the better.”
The proposed B.C. changes are meant, in part, to increase the ease of flow of timber and wood, which could benefit Brink Forest Products as a secondary lumber remanufacturer.
However, Brink believes a split between Eastern Canadian and B.C. lumber producers could prevent a softwood deal. Eastern Canadian producers have been much less receptive to the American’s call for provinces to put more timber up for public auction to create market-based pricing. Eastern Canadian producers are also more strongly pushing for a continuation of the legal fight.
It may mean that B.C., which accounts for half of Canada’s $10 billion in lumber exports to the U.S., may have to strike its own deal, said Brink, who said it is often hard to know exactly what is happening on the ground in negotiations. The Northern Interior, Canada’s largest lumber producing region, account for $2 billion of that trade.
As many as 200 Canadian lumber executives, their lobbyists and lawyers have been meeting with their American counterparts for the past six days.
International Trade Minister Pierre Pettigrew also completed day two of his meetings with the U.S. administration in Washingtion, D.C.
It’s the first serious discussions since talks broke down last March.
Laurie Cater, publisher of Madison’s Canadian Lumber Reporter, said he’s not optimistic for a quick end to the dispute. Even if a deal could be worked out tying provincial forest policy change to duty-free access the U.S., it wouldn’t halt the flow of lumber from Canada to the U.S., which is ultimately what the U.S. lumber industry wants, he said. In the Interior, companies like Canfor, Slocan, and West Fraser Timber have been working hard to reduce their costs and become more competitive.
“If there was to be duty-free access into the U.S., these companies would not be shipping less lumber,” noted Cater, who talks weekly to lumber buyers on both sides of the border.
B.C. forest industry consultant Les Reed said he still believes B.C.’s best bet is to fight the tariffs at the WTO and under NAFTA.
“We should just hang in there having gone this far and survived,” he said.
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