B.C. lumber sector squeezed again as U.S. duties add to industry’s long-running challenges

The U.S. Commerce Department’s final results from its seventh administrative review set countervailing duties at 14.1 per cent and anti-dumping rates at 10.64 per cent, according to information provided for this story.

Those duties, combined with an additional 10 per cent tariff imposed under Section 232, push the overall border burden on Canadian softwood lumber to roughly 35 per cent.

The arithmetic of the individual figures provided is 34.74 per cent, although the supplied material describes the combined rate as 34.75 per cent.

For an industry heavily dependent on access to the American market, Haakstad said the uncertainty created by repeated reviews makes long-term planning increasingly difficult.

“You start making a product, you’re not really sure what the import duties are going to be when you eventually have it cross the border,” she said. “Instability is not good for business. And I don’t think it’s good for consumers either.”

Haakstad argues those costs do not stop at the border. They ultimately factor into construction costs at a time when housing affordability and supply are major problems in both Canada and the United States.

She said U.S. builders in some jurisdictions specifically use Canadian spruce-pine-fir lumber, meaning higher import costs can directly affect the economics of construction.

The long-running dispute is also receiving more attention in Washington as tariffs and other trade barriers affect a wider range of Canadian exports.

Haakstad said that was evident during a July trip to Washington, D.C.

“Often Canada’s not top of mind for legislators and their staff in Washington, D.C.,” she said. “But it is now.”

She believes one reason is that barriers on forest products, along with those imposed on other Canadian manufactured goods, are becoming increasingly apparent to American consumers.

If there is a silver lining to the wider Canada-U.S. trade fight, Haakstad said, it may be that more people are recognizing the consequences of tariffs.

But U.S. trade measures are only part of the problem facing B.C. producers.

Haakstad said the province also needs to address costs and regulatory pressures at home if its mills are going to compete not just in the U.S., but in longstanding overseas markets.

“We have added so many costs to businesses in British Columbia that it’s getting harder and harder for us to get stuff to international markets like Japan and China and South Korea that have been our long-term, dependable customers,” she said.

She said B.C. producers are more expensive than competitors in other global forest jurisdictions, putting pressure on companies and communities that rely on forestry.

The consequences are particularly visible across northern British Columbia.

Haakstad pointed to communities around Prince George and farther west, including Fort St. James and Burns Lake, where mill losses have meant fewer jobs and less economic activity.

“We don’t want to see that keep repeating,” she said.

Haakstad said more than 50 regulatory and policy changes have been layered onto the industry in recent years. She said industry wants government to examine which measures are producing their intended results and which are adding costs without achieving the appropriate balance among environmental protection, economic benefits and First Nations reconciliation.

Kiel Giddens, a B.C. Conservative candidate, also argues the province needs to concentrate on the factors it can control while Canada fights U.S. duties.

Giddens said he has heard similar concerns from both major industry organizations and local producers, including Carrier Lumber, Sinclar Group and Conifex.

“They want our industry to be successful with government policy and regulation that makes sense, that cuts the red tape and ensures that they actually have a fighting chance to survive in this time of tariffs and duties,” he said.

Giddens also criticized the provincial government over plans involving the transfer of parcels of land to First Nations, arguing affected forestry workers and companies have not been adequately consulted or compensated.

“That’s a huge problem,” Giddens said. “It’s death by a thousand cuts from an NDP government that has not prioritized forestry in this province.”

While Giddens said such changes add to the pressures on forestry companies, Haakstad likewise argues the industry’s troubles cannot be blamed entirely on Washington.

“It is the operating conditions here,” she said. “And we’ve got to do some work together with the new government, industry, local governments and First Nations to get to a better place where the industry is stabilized.”

The United States nevertheless remains an essential market for Canadian lumber, and the BC Lumber Trade Council wants the two countries back at the negotiating table.

Haakstad said a negotiated agreement with predictable, long-term conditions would benefit companies and consumers on both sides of the border.

Until that happens, B.C. producers face the combination of repeated U.S. trade action and high costs at home.

For an industry that has already watched mills disappear from northern communities, the stakes go far beyond an argument over tariff percentages.

They are about whether B.C. mills can remain competitive enough to keep operating and keep forestry jobs in communities such as Prince George.

“We’ve been hanging on,” Haakstad said. “But as you know, in some cases, just barely.”

by Cheryl Jahn

B.C. lumber sector squeezed again as U.S. duties add to industry’s long-running challenges

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