Progress… but more work still to do.
Canada, U.S. agree on softwood framework
Updated Wed. Apr. 26 2006 11:51 PM ET
CTV.ca News StaffCanada and the U.S. have agreed on a framework deal to put the decades old softwood lumber dispute behind them—but it’s a proposal that could prove to be a hard sell to lumber-producing provinces.
The breakthrough comes after around-the-clock negotiations between Michael Wilson, the ambassador to the United States and Susan Schwab, the deputy U.S. trade representative, reported CTV’s Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife on Wednesday.
As part of the proposed framework:
· Canadian lumber firms would be held to a 34 per cent share of softwood lumber in the U.S. market, which is roughly Canada’s current share. That share would be broken down regionally, based on 2004-05 exports.
The U.S. would return about 78 per cent of the $5 billion it collected in anti-dumping and countervailing duties beginning in 2002.· Ottawa would impose an export tax which would vary according to lumber prices, export levels and the value of the Canadian dollar.
· A “surge mechanism” would penalize a region if its exports exceed 110 per cent of its allocated share.
However, before he signs off on the deal, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is seeking the approval of provinces where the major lumber companies are based.[…]International Trade Minister David Emerson continued to tell Parliament Wednesday that no deal has been made.
Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn stressed there are still issues to be resolved with the provinces, and until they are, “there is absolutely no deal.”
“I want to make that absolutely clear,” said Lunn Wednesday in an interview on CTV Newsnet’s Mike Duffy Live.
“Until the ink is on the paper, there is no deal and there is nothing more that can be said than that.”
[…]
(Note how in the CTV.ca article above (go read it), Ontario is portrayed as the only province worth talking about, even though Ontario accounts for only about 10 percent of the lumber exports. British Columbia alone accounts for over half of the exports, and it’s barely even mentioned in the article.)
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