Cullen Says Ottawa “Missed Opportunity” to Resolve SLA
Prince George, B.C. – In the wake of countervailing duties being levelled against Canadian lumber exports to the U.S., Skeena Bulkley MP Nathan Cullen says the dispute didn’t have to happen.
Cullen says a former U.S. Trade representative told the New York Times, a proposal had been put before the Canadian Government while Barrack Obama was still in the Whitehouse, but Canada decided not to sign it ” If we had a way to solve this and chose not to and waited for the Trump Administration to try and work out a deal, then Trudeau’s government wasn’t paying attention to the campaign that was going on in the U.S., because clearly, Trump is looking to tighten their border and close up trading routes. because that was part of his entire rhetoric for 18 months.”
He says the need for a Softwood deal was being raised in Ottawa long before the U.S. election and was given new urgency following the vote Stateside “What I was hearing from Congressional friends in Washington was that Softwood was going to be made as the example of the new Trump administration’s take on trade. Everyone assumed from the way Trump ran his campaign, and even since he got into office that Mexico or China would be the first targets Well whether it’s softwood, or dairy, or NAFTA at large, Canada seems to be the first target of this administration.”
He says the irony is that with duties on Canadian Lumber, American consumers will be facing higher prices “Because our wood is going to be more expensive, but never combine the words Trump and logic in the same sentence because that’s not, obviously, what’s going on here.”
While the big players in the lumber sector are likely to weather the storm because of diversification of markets and large cash deposits to cover those duties, it is the smaller operators and the communities in which they are located that will likely feel the hit. Cullen says more needs to be done for those small communities which are facing uncertainty. “If we have layoffs, we need to have increases in EI and training. We need to further increase and diversify our markets.”
He suggests there be two tiers of funding be made available to impacted communities “To say Telkwa and Kelowna should be able to compete fairly is ignoring reality, that small communities seem to be at a perpetual disadvantage in building up ur infrastructure or even just repairing what we have, while the ‘haves’ have more and the have nots are left behind.”
Comments
Canada First ! Buy Canadian !
Ok, if there is any advantage, than we will slap an export tax just for the United States. If that is what Trump wants we will oblige. So hopefully we don’t get accused of dumping our lumber.
Ok big ego man Cullen, why don’t you provide us with more info from your informants on why Canada should have signed an earlier deal? I’m edging to the side that we probably didn’t sign it because it was also a bad deal.
Please keep your profanities to yourself.
funny, that Canfor and West Fraser shares are way up, since the announcement. They very wisely positioned themselves for this potential by buying operations in the southern states. They are in a position where they will profit either way, and the American consumer will pay for it. So buy shares.
Shares are up as tariffs not near as high as expected. More window dressing than anything else.
While politicians are playing the **woulda, coulda, shoulda, game we are fast approaching a disaster in BC’s lumber industry.
The duties put on by the Americans are retroactive to Feb 1/17 and apply to all the smaller mills in BC. (for some reason the large corporations were exempted from the retroactive ruling.) This means that the small mills have to come up with millions of dollars to put on deposit to cover the duties on lumber exported from Feb. 1st.
Those small mills could start to reduce costs and lay off employee’s as early as this Monday according to Todd Doherty in a story in the Citizen to-day.
We cannot afford to lose any more mills in BC, and certainly not in the interior.
If ever their was a time for a politician to stand up and be counted, now is the time.
If we lose mills, we lose jobs, ie; co-gen, pellet plants, finger joint mills, logging truck jobs, and sales of logging trucks, maintenance, tire, etc; etc;.
This is a much bigger problem than it appears on the surface. If we lose all these jobs, then we lose people, close schools, stores, and more lay offs take place. No business, or Government is going to get off scott free. In fact we could at some point be looking at losing our University or at the very least a consolidation of the University and the College.
This is very serious, and our politicians had better be looking after our interests on this file.
It is pretty easy for an MP sitting in the opposition benches to make statements like this. You aren’t at the negotiation table. You’re not even invited to the same parties.
Cullen, what’s he do again?
I don’t think that most people who post here get it. How many more mills, mines, plywood plants, pulp mills, have to close before it sinks in that we are in for a tough time in the Interior.
As an example we have only 200 more people in the work force to-day in BC than we had 15 years ago.
On the one hand we have Christy Clark, stating that the Federal Government should restrict exports of thermal coal through BC ports. If the Feds actually did that there would be more jobs lost. She makes this statement during an election, and at the same time as the new owners of coal mines in the Tumbler Ridge area are trying to get the three Walter Energy mines that shut down, up and running.
If I was in Tumbler Ridge I would be wondering why I should vote for Christy.
The mills and plywood plants closed as a result of the beetle infestation-hard to keep the doors open without logs or peelers.
Duh think Christy was talking about the 6.2 million metric tons of US coal that is exported each year from Vancouver port. Direct kick to Trump’s nads after all the promises he made to bring back coal jobs in hillbilly country.
BTW Might be wromg but I think the coal that comes out of Tumbler is metallugical not thermal.
Metallurgical and thermal. It doesn’t matter if the coal comes from the USA. If we close the ports the coals will go to US Ports, and BC Ports will lose the jobs.
What Christy showed is that she is never really up to speed on any issue.
Notice she never mentions how polluting LNG plants are. Seems she thinks it a good thing if we reduce pollution in China by reducing coal shipments, and supposedly forcing them to use LNG, however she overlooks the pollution we generate in BC by building LNG plants.
An excellent example of a poster yapping off about something they only know 10% of the facts but make up some good bedtime stories to tell their kids.
Do some research Palopu and maybe you will see how silly you look.
I’ve done my research Tommy. Perhaps you in your wisdom can point out where I went wrong.
When it comes to looking silly, you take the cake.
OK Pal, did you research where California, Oregon and Washington are putting in legislation to restrict thermal coal ports. Their own states dont want the crap flowing through.
So in Cullens world we should have accepted a deal which most likely was far worse than the current tariffs. How do we know, who has seen the details of the previous offer? Obviously was not very good or it would have been accepted.
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