It's an old Gordon Lightfoot song but it could well double as the anthem for Canada's softwood lumber capitulation, er treaty, with the United States.
To buy peace, we let the US government keep a big hunk of the illegal duties it levied on Canadian softwood imports, money that was then handed over to the US lumber industry to fund further legal attacks on us.
So the Harper/Emerson masterstroke agreement of 2006, the one where we supposedly bought seven years of peace, lasted one year before the Americans made their move.
That followed the procedures set out in the deal, arbitration first and then submission of the dispute to a court in London. Okay. The court came out, ruling in favour of BC and Alberta but finding that eastern producers were in violation of the terms.
Being a law-abiding country, Emerson wasted no time in saying Canada would accept the ruling which the treaty makes binding. So what do the Americans have to say? You got it, they won't say they'll accept the "binding" decision. Instead the US trade reps said they'll consult the "stakeholders," the American lumber companies that brought the attack funded by Canadian plunder.
And if they don't agree to their binding obligations? Well they're not quite so binding as we thought. Seems the US can bail out of the deal whenever they like. Would somebody remind me why the hell we're in Afghanistan anyway?
To buy peace, we let the US government keep a big hunk of the illegal duties it levied on Canadian softwood imports, money that was then handed over to the US lumber industry to fund further legal attacks on us.
So the Harper/Emerson masterstroke agreement of 2006, the one where we supposedly bought seven years of peace, lasted one year before the Americans made their move.
That followed the procedures set out in the deal, arbitration first and then submission of the dispute to a court in London. Okay. The court came out, ruling in favour of BC and Alberta but finding that eastern producers were in violation of the terms.
Being a law-abiding country, Emerson wasted no time in saying Canada would accept the ruling which the treaty makes binding. So what do the Americans have to say? You got it, they won't say they'll accept the "binding" decision. Instead the US trade reps said they'll consult the "stakeholders," the American lumber companies that brought the attack funded by Canadian plunder.
And if they don't agree to their binding obligations? Well they're not quite so binding as we thought. Seems the US can bail out of the deal whenever they like. Would somebody remind me why the hell we're in Afghanistan anyway?
2 comments:
Aaaarrrggghhh! The whole softwood thing has been a clusterf*k for years now. We should just stop selling our wood to them, if they're worried about us undercutting their suppliers. That way, their producers get all that american coin, and we can sell to europe and asia, who would probably be happy to buy our wood at our prices.
Yeah, I know there are a lot of reasons why that is a bad idea but the urge.... yeah.
Here on Vancouver Island the impacts of this nonsense have been hard felt. Fortunately it hasn't translated into anger at visiting Americans. Actually, without them what's left of our tourism industry would be just as hard hit.
Post a Comment