VICTORIA – Officials on both sides of the border are blaming each other for the failure to renegotiate a softwood lumber agreement between Canada and the United States before it expired Monday.
American industry groups have long claimed Canada subsidizes its lumber production and the trade agreement regulated Canadian softwood exports to the United States.
The 2006 agreement ended five years of court battles and returned $4 billion in duties collected by the United States that had been imposed on Canadian producers, with more than half — $2.4 billion — returned to British Columbia companies.
U.S. Lumber Coalition spokesman Zoltan van Heynigen says Canada continues to stay away from the table, but B.C. Premier Christy Clark says it is the Americans that have refused to negotiate despite two years of a requests.
Clark has said the importance of a renewed lumber deal will be her first topic of discussion with the new prime minister following next week’s federal election.
The expired agreement includes a standstill clause that prevents the United States from launching any trade action against Canadian producers for one year.
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