Attention all lumber mills, the seven month old softwood lumber deal between Canada and the USA is apparently back on the front burner. As American officials claim that Canada is breaking its side of the deal and threaten to take the dispute to arbitration in the United Kingdom. The two nations set up meetings in Ottawa on Thursday to try and sort out their differences. There has been no announcement as to how those talks progressed today.
The latest cross border trouble arose after a six page letter of complaint issued March 3oth by US Trade Representative Susan Shwab, the letter outlines a number of complaints against Canada that the Trade Representative says contravenes the deal.
The long battles over softwood wreaked havoc for Canadian Forest Companies for a number of years, while the American side disregarded a number of "victories" by Canadian mills, playing out the clock as they say until they rattled off their own set of "victories." It became one of the bitterest of issues between the two nations and was quick to raise the passions on both sides of the border. It continues to be a hot button issue in BC to this day.
At the time of it's completion the Softwood Lumber Agreement was supposed to bring peace to the raging war of words, but it would seem that for the lumber industry, peace may be a very short lived concept.
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