“The U.S. Commerce Department said on Monday it had made a preliminary decision to exclude three of Canada‘s Atlantic provinces from a U.S. investigation into whether Canada is dumping or subsidizing exports of softwood lumber…Much of the wood in the excluded provinces is harvested from private land, and the Canadian provinces had argued that they operate under more of a free-market model.”
– Global News June 26, 2017
New Brunswick is still hoping to be likewise excluded.
Canadian softwood lumber exports have been in the area of $5-6 billion annually; Nova Scotia exported $85 million in 2014. A softwood lumber tariff of 19.88% was imposed on Nova Scotia May 1, and now an additional 6.87% in tariffs is being imposed, for an average [for Canada] of 27%. “In a statement announcing the latest decision, U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said those duties [on NS, PEI & Nfld & Labrador] would still be collected pending a final determination.” (Global News).
Some way or another we need to move away from export dependency and the strong linkage of lumber to clearcutting and pulp and paper. Robert Taylor seems to have some of the answers – View We can “cut less and do more” to foster a healthy forest economy in Nova Scotia (Post April 20, 2017)