Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government is preparing financial supports for the forestry sector as the U.S. ratchets up duties on Canadian softwood lumber.
Carney is promising an aid package for the industry that includes $700 million in loan guarantees and $500 million for long-term supports to help companies diversify export markets and develop their products.
It comes in the wake of heightened trade tensions with the U.S. over softwood lumber, a longtime point of friction in the Canada-U.S. trade relationship.
The U.S. Commerce Department recently announced it intends to hike anti-dumping duties on Canadian softwood to just over 20 per cent.
That’s a marked increase since the last time the U.S. reviewed the rate, which previously was just over 7 per cent.
Carney also says the government will introduce a training program for workers which will include some $50 million for the forestry sector.
Brian Menzies, executive director of the Independent Wood Processors Association of B.C., says he’s grateful Carney has heard the industry’s concerns.
“Where he says that these supports will go to any company regardless of size, this is good for the companies the Independent Wood Processors Association represents, which are small- and medium-sized family associations,” Menzies explained.
He says the investment is a good start and will go a long way towards helping the softwood lumber industry, whose members have been facing legal cases over excessive duties for nearly a decade.
“They have been, for over eight years, putting up bonds to support the duties and waiting for all the court cases to end to find out exactly how much they have to pay. And it’s important for us to have some extra support from governments to spread our risk around. So this is a movement in the right direction.”
Despite progress, Menzies says Canada needs to resolve the trade conflict with the U.S. through negotiation.
“If we can work together in North America, we are better off. It’s a win-win situation. We’re better off managing our forest. We’re better off growing the wood side of our industry and not losing out to substitute products like plastics and products that are made from cement, for example, which aren’t very environmentally responsible. So the best solution here is to continue to get the Americans to the table to find a resolution that benefits all of us. But certainly Prime Minister Carney today introduced a number of incentives to be able to get us to focus again on our market in Canada and to diversify our market and to help us get over the hump.”
—With files from Raynaldo Suarez