Rebar tariffs are not affecting costs
Ironworkers: There is no basis for assertions that the price of condos and major projects will rise
Phil Hochstein’s July 28 article in the Sun (“National rebar tariff is a Buy America preference imposed on B.C.”) and the accompanying piece from Ryan Beedie on the same subject (“Unnecessary tariff hits your pocketbook”) mislead Sun readers on an issue that affects construction in British Columbia.
The Canadian International Trade Tribunal this week opened a public hearing in Vancouver into a ruling it made in 2014 that placed tariffs on reinforcing steel (rebar) imported into Canada from China, Turkey, and South Korea.
Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec will all be there in support of the tariff.
Ironworkers will be there, too, along with steel manufacturers and contractors from across Canada, providing evidence the tariff is the right thing to do.
Leading the hysteria against the tariff has been Hochstein’s Independent Contractors and Businesses Association (ICBA).
The ICBA continues to repeat its unfounded assertion that the tariff will add $7,000 to $10,000 to the price of a typical Vancouver condo and add $60 million to the construction of Site C (that would require a tariff of $1,000 per ton).
Despite the sky-is-falling bleatings of Hochstein, the price of rebar in B.C. has not risen since the imposition of the tariff this year.
American steel producers sell into the B.C. market. They also find a source of scrap steel here (cars mainly) and turn that into rebar; Asian steel producers can’t afford to do this.
Additionally, and unlike Canadian or American steel, no Asian steel meets LEED green certification due to the distance it would need to travel to get to market here.
The ICBA argues this “dumped” rebar is needed to supply the B.C. market. This is not the case, as is borne out by the daily experience of our 2,000 members working on major industrial and commercial projects in every corner of B.C.
An Edmonton mill produces rebar, and is half the distance to Site C as the Port of Vancouver, which is where foreign steel would land before being loaded on rail cars for the journey to the Peace River region. Why would any contractor worthy of a Site C contract use steel from overseas when high-quality steel manufactured to Canadian standards is available at about the same cost from a mill just over a provincial border?
Vancouver’s last steel mill closed in the 1990s. Not only will dumped steel mean no one will build a steel mill in B.C. again, but it may well cause that Alberta mill to close its doors. (Hochstein is concerned about his members, but there are those of us with a broader agenda including Canadian industry and Canadian jobs.) Companies in other provinces also produce rebar and provide it to B.C. contractors at competitive prices.
As strong supporters of Site C and the government’s ambitious plans for an LNG industry we are disturbed by the ICBA’s wrongheaded assertions that this tariff on rebar will add to the cost burden of projects ranging from a Vancouver condominium to Site C to an LNG plant at Prince Rupert or Kitimat.
Site C and LNG plants and pipelines are critical to the future prosperity of every British Columbian. They are sophisticated projects requiring the highest quality components and the most highly skilled workers available.
Hochstein conveniently leaves out of his article (as does Beedie in his) that the price of rebar has dropped in B.C. since the tariffs were imposed. He also fails to explain why, if the rebar tariff would add so much to the cost of a Vancouver condo, the price of that same condo has not declined with the price of rebar, or why when ICBA members used this dumped rebar those condo prices continued to rise. The cost of rebar is lower since January, tariffs and all, yet condo prices have continued to climb.
Contrary to Hochstein’s musings in the pages of the Sun and to the provincial government, rebar tariffs have not affected the price of condos, nor will they add to the cost of LNG plants or the Site C dam.