Panel data provided by Madison's Canadian Lumber Reporter.

Talking Tequilla and Two x Fours: One Man's Opinion

By Ben Meisner

-by Ben Meisner

When Prime Minister Harper, David Emerson and U.S. President George Bush meet in Cancun today, they will be talking softwood lumber.  And just like taking a shot of Cuervo Gold, they may even have to ask for a little salt and a squeeze of lemon to make the subject more palletable.

What is most important about the latest NAFTA ruling on the soft wood lumber file is just how little meaning it will have in the big picture on the issue. The latest ruling by the free trade panel says the US has wrongly assessed the benefits of Canadian Lumber. 

Now I don’t know how many times we have won in the WTO or the NAFTA panel but it definitely is enough that the Americans should, be getting the picture by now.  

But wait ,want to bet the hole in a Tim’s Honey Dip that all this latest ruling will do is send the US lumber lobby to the US Congress seeking an extraordinary ruling from them and of course threatening to impose other duties on those pesky Canadians to the north?  

Interestingly enough one of the biggest dealers of the cards, CANFOR, now has established itself firmly in the southern US by buying out a group of companies that was part of  the US lumber coalition. 

So here you have it, you pay money in on the Canadian side, ( about a half billion) while down south at South West you hope to collect some of those green backs into the till. It’s a bit like being engaged to Paris Hilton and Lisa Marie Presley at the same time. A lot of benefits flow to you, but loyalty is not one of them. Canfor at this very moment is engaged to both Canada and the US and from that you can draw your own conclusions. 

Now as for David Emerson saying the ruling is a very good one, well he will remember his time at CANFOR when he repeatedly said the same thing. The US wants a deal from their counterparts across the border; they now know we would never squeeze them with the resources they really need like gas, oil and power, so they can turn  up the burner on the lumber file one more time. 

Settlement as a result of the latest ruling?  Not in your wildest dreams. 

Negotiated settlement perhaps, if we agree to continue to pay some sort of tariff and agree not to ask for our money back. 

I’m Meisner and that is one man’s opinion.


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