Impact of new duties on New Brunswick’s forestry industry

The New Brunswick forestry industry is deeply troubled by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s recent decision to increase anti-dumping duties on Canadian softwood lumber exports to the United States. The following statement can be attributed to Jerome Pelletier and Glen Warmen, Co-Chairs of the New Brunswick Lumber Producers: 

“Increasing anti-dumping duties to 20.56 per cent from the current average rate of 7.66 per cent is unjustified.

New Brunswick’s softwood lumber producers already face punitive and unfair anti-dumping and countervailing duties. Together, these duties currently average over 14 per cent. The newly announced increase to anti-dumping duties, combined with an anticipated rise in countervailing duties, will mean an expected new total of 34 per cent by mid-August.

Except for the current trade case, for 35 years New Brunswick has been consistently excluded from all previous lumber trade cases with no duty rates on the basis that:

• Crown stumpage fees are determined through a market-based system;
• New Brunswick’s Crown stumpage fees are consistently some of the highest in Canada; and
• New Brunswick is the only province currently impacted by the trade case with a high volume of private wood sources, representing approximately 50 per cent of the sawmill supply. All the other Canadian provinces are less than 20 per cent private.

Despite no change to any of these conditions, New Brunswick Lumber Producers are being penalized by this current trade cases that fails to recognize the unique realities of the market based system and high percentage of wood supply from private land in New Brunswick.   

In fact, the largest New Brunswick Lumber Producer has been audited by the U.S. Department of Commerce more than five times since 2017. As a result of each review, this producer was given a countervailing duty rate well below the Canadian average.  This confirms that softwood lumber producers in New Brunswick are not receiving large subsidies from either the Canadian or provincial governments and should not be paying these unfair duty rates.

New Brunswick’s forestry sector currently employs over 24,000 New Brunswickers and is a significant contributor to the province’s gross domestic product.  It supports mill towns, thousands of private woodlot owners and other small businesses that rely on the forest supply chain.  

In these challenging times, we remain united with industry partners, elected officials and thousands of New Brunswickers who work in the forestry sector. We all need to work together to fight these new duties, advocate for fair treatment and recognition of our competitive market-based practices.”

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The New Brunswick Lumber Producers (NBLP) are an integral part of NB’s forest value chain, operating in 15 rural communities and representing 95 per cent of the softwood lumber production in the province. The NBLP are the largest wood buyers for the local private woodlot owners, supporting thousands of mill employees, professional loggers, truckers and silviculture workers, in all regions of New Brunswick. The NBLP are also the largest supplier of wood chips, biomass and sawdust, which are the key ingredients in the manufacturing of New Brunswick pulp, paper and wood pellet products.