Central Nova MP Sean Fraser hailed the U.S. government’s move to exempt Nova Scotia’s softwood lumber industry from punitive border tariffs as “a very positive development.”
Fraser said the U.S. Department of Commerce’s decision to spare Nova Scotia from tariffs will preserve hundreds of forestry jobs in Pictou County and throughout the province.
The tariffs include anti-dumping fees and countervailing duties that are applied if a province subsidizes its industry.
“It’s certainly something that we welcome and certainly something that we’ve worked hard for, to ensure that Nova Scotian industry players are protected,” Fraser told The News.
In a release last week, the federal Liberals said the U.S. government’s decision to spare the province was proof that the provincial lumber industry was not unfairly subsidized.
Instead, Fraser said that a large part of the province’s forestry industry is made up of small woodlots that would likely be forced to close if they lost easy access to the American market.
Washington’s decision not to impose softwood lumber duties will allow Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador and Prince Edward Island to do business in an open market. New Brunswick is not included in the deal.
Federal Liberal MPs from Atlantic Canada backed a ‘Maritime Exclusion’ on softwood lumber duties for their respective provinces on the grounds that punitive countervailing and anti-dumping duties against Canada’s softwood lumber producers are unwarranted.
“It’s something that we are very proud of as a Nova Scotia caucus,” said Fraser. “This is a very positive development.”
The U.S. government previously imposed a 20 per cent tariff on softwood lumber exports from Nova Scotia in May, ending a previous exemption that acknowledged the industry was not subsidized in Atlantic Canada.
Fraser welcomed the new exemption as “something that will give some certainty to our mills.”
The federal government says that demand for lumber in the U.S. exceeds what domestic mills can supply. This means that the American housing industry and others look to Canada for stable access to their needed product.
The 2006 Softwood Lumber Agreement expired in 2015 and offered a stable deal for the softwood lumber industry in both the U.S. and Canada while it was in place.
The softwood lumber issue is a quarter century-long dispute between the two nations and was not resolved by the North American Free Trade Agreement.
However, President Donald Trump’s stated intent to renegotiate NAFTA and follow a more protectionist economic agenda is anticipated to cause more trade disputes between Ottawa and Washington.
