The President and CEO of the BC Lumber Trade Council, which represents all of the mills in the province, says the U.S. duties on softwood lumber announced yesterday are unwarranted and completely without merit.
Susan Yurkovich also vows that BC lumber producers will vigorously defend themselves.
Having said all of that, Yurkovich also says that they are not surprised by the announcement and adds that it is the American consumers who are going to be impacted by this, at least in the short term…
“If we have a dispute that lasts a long period of time and there is price volatility or prices come back down, then we could have some impacts on this side of the border but right now the impacts are being mitigated by the price increases that we are experiencing in the market today.”
Yurkovich says they are now in litigation but talks will continue…
“Well we’re in litigation now and even while we’re in litigation we have continued to talk and our strong hope that we will get the other party on the other side of the table to come to the table and sit down and talk about a long term agreement that works for producers and consumers on both sides of the border.”
And they have some time as litigation takes a long time.
She says they can’t even appeal until January of 2018.
The U.S. Department of Commerce says that the countervailing duty is required to offset what in its view is unfair subsidies that Canadian and provincial governments allegedly provide to lumber companies.
The U.S. Department of Commerce says that the countervailing duty is required to offset what in its view is unfair subsidies that Canadian and provincial governments allegedly provide to lumber companies.
The Department investigated five companies and assessed preliminary countervailing duties as follows:
* Canfor: 20.26%
* Irving: 3.02%
* Resolute: 12.82%
* Tolko: 19.50%
* West Fraser: 24.12%
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