Feds cut duties on U.S. drywall imports
Some of about $12M collected will help victims of Fort McMurray wildfires
Canada will OTTAWA/CALGARY slash anti-dumping duties on U.S. drywall imports after a trade panel ruled that maintaining levies imposed last fall would harm consumers and businesses, federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau announced Monday.
At the same time, some of the roughly $12 million collected since the duties were imposed in September will go toward a compensation package for residents of Fort McMurray forced to rebuild their homes after wildfires tore through the community, Morneau said after he visited a residential neighbourhood in the Alberta city.
“We’re pleased to be able to help people out,” said Morneau in an interview. “We know that they’re obviously facing real challenges still.”
The minister said the program will deliver about $300 to an average Fort McMurray family whose home replacement project was affected by higher drywall prices because of the tariffs. He said the money is expected to be available before year-end.
Some of the funds will also go to builders and contractors in Western Canada who had to absorb higher costs to complete fixed price jobs they had already been contracted to do, Morneau said.
The duties imposed last fall were in response to a dumping complaint by French-owned CertainTeed Gypsum Canada, the last drywall (or gypsum board) manufacturer in Western Canada with plants in Vancouver, Calgary and Winnipeg, and at two gypsum quarries in B.C. and Manitoba.
The Canadian International Trade Tribunal (CITT) ruled last month that, while U.S. firms had dumped drywall in Canada at discounted prices over the past few years, maintaining duties would not be in the country’s trade interests.
The tribunal recommended ending preliminary duties of up to 276 per cent imposed by the Canada Border Services Agency, and instead charging permanent variable duties on any imports that fall below a set floor price.
The government on Monday said it would lower minimum import prices by just over 32 per cent, an approach that is expected to result in the same level of duty reduction as recommended by the CITT.
“The approach we did, by creating a minimum imported price, quickly deals with the issue so that people can move on with the homebuilding decision in the case of home builders or with the buying decision and have a good sense of what the cost implications are,” said Morneau.
He said the CITT’s recommendation to suspend tariffs for six months was rejected in favour of more quickly establishing price certainty.
Ben White, CertainTeed’s regional manufacturing manager for Western Canada, said he’s pleased that the rebuilding of Fort McMurray is being supported and that builders faced with losing money on drywall contracts will be compensated.
Phil Meagher, deputy mayor of the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, which encompasses Fort McMurray, said the federal relief was a needed “correction” for the harm done by the tariffs.
The community lost 1,800 single-family homes and dozens of other structures in last spring’s wildfires.