EMERSON’S OUR MAN
He’ll fight for B.C. on lumber
In 2006, David Emerson — then Canada’s minister of international trade — signed off on a 10-year truce in the Canada/U.S. softwood lumber dispute.
Now, a decade later, Premier Christy Clark has tapped the seasoned civil servant, business executive and former MP to be B.C.’s trade envoy to Washington D.C., representing the province’s interests in the latest round of the long-running trade battle.
“At this stage, I would say we are at a standoff,” Emerson told Postmedia News following his appointment.
Emerson, a lumber trade expert for the Paul Martin and Stephen Harper governments, was CEO of Canfor Corp. — Canada’s largest lumber producer — in the late 1990s.
With the 2006 softwood lumber agreement now expired, B.C. and other Canadian provinces favour continuing the old deal, which had an export tax on Canadian lumber that was adjusted based on market prices for lumber at any given time. On the U.S. side, however, Emerson said American lumber producers favour quota restrictions on Canadian imports, “which would be quite punishing.”
“To be candid, the U.S. government has rarely, if ever, gone against the wishes of the (U.S. Lumber Coalition) because it’s so powerful with congressmen,” Emerson said.
“At this stage, I can’t really tell you what it’s going to take to resolve (the dispute.)
However, with lumber exports to the U.S. worth $4.5 billion in 2016, and direct employment of some 60,000 in the sector, it is an important dispute for the province to see resolved.
“He is probably the most skilful and knowledgeable person in this area that we could send down to the States on our behalf,” Clark said of Emerson, who will report directly to the premier on the file.
Clark said B.C. needs to make the case that managed trade in lumber works for both Canadian lumber producers and the U.S. construction industry, considering President Donald Trump’s goal of increasing American economic growth.
“Defending those jobs for British Columbians is our absolute priority,” Clark said.
“We are all hands on deck on this.”
Resolving the dispute, in which the U.S. industry argues that the government-managed access to Crown timber amounts to an unfair subsidy, is acutely important at the same time lumber producers are being squeezed by shrinking timber supplies due to the mountain pine beetle infestation.
The U.S. Lumber Coalition, the industry’s main lobby group, reignited the dispute last November when it filed a petition with the U.S. Commerce Department alleging that Canada’s softwood lumber industry is subsidized and Canadian lumber producers were “dumping” lumber into the U.S. market.