Prince George, B.C. – In a conference call to discuss Canfor’s first quarter  results,  company CEO  Don Kayne  called the  countervailing duties  levelled by the U.S.  against  Canadian lumber exports as “punitive and  completely unwarranted”.

Canfor was  hit with a rate of 20.26%.  Kayne says the duties are not based on fact “But are a result of  protectionist efforts by the U.S. lumber lobby aimed at  artificially restricting supply for their own  benefit  but at the expense,  ultimately, of U.S. consumers.”

Kayne says Canfor will defend  itself and  will  work with colleagues to defend the industry “We fully  expect the determination by the U.S. Department of Commerce  to be overturned by independent NAFTA and WTO panels and that the duties will  ultimately be rescinded and returned.”

He praised both the provincial and Federal governments for their  work on this issue ” We have  had excellent support and collaboration  from the Canadian Federal and B.C. Provincial Governments and  have every  confidence they will take  all the appropriate steps to  successfully fight these outrageous trade actions again, as they have  done  previously.”

Kayne says  Canfor has been preparing for  possible trade issues “We have significantly diversified our markets,  we’ve grown global  markets in general through promotion of wood as a green building material, we’ve added 14 operations in the  U.S. South representing 1.6 billion board feet  or 30% of our production and made significant capital investments in our B.C.  operations to ensure  our global competitiveness, close to  $1 billion dollars in the last 5 years.”