MARATHON — Northwestern Ontario municipalities and business leaders are joining the chorus of Canadian forestry interests who criticizing a new tariff increase from the United States on softwood lumber.
In a joint statement, the Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association and the Thunder Bay Chamber of Commerce said they were “expressing deep concern” over the announced increase on anti-dumping duties on Canadian softwood lumber up to 20.56 per cent.
“This represents a dramatic escalation in trade barriers for a sector vital to Northwestern Ontario’s economy and future,” the statement said.
“I don't understand what President Trump is thinking about in this regard, but it's definitely going to have impacts on the forestry sector in Northwestern Ontario — and, of course, all of Ontario,” said NOMA president and Marathon mayor Rick Dumas, adding that NOMA is also working with its sister organization, the Federation of Northern Ontario Municipalities, which represents communities in the northeast.
Anti-dumping duties are tariffs typically imposed on imported goods that are sold more cheaply in a foreign market than in the exporter’s domestic market. Backlash similar to that from the Northwest has also come from political and forestry interests elsewhere in Canada, including British Columbia and New Brunswick, according to reports.
Dumas said he’s worried about this latest round of tariffs, and what it will mean for jobs, in an industry that’s already been hit hard over the past 20 years.
“I've worked through a lot of the different impacts in forestry,” he said, noting the 2008 global recession, specifically. “It hit forestry, and specifically in northern Ontario, really, really hard.”
“We lost mills like crazy.”
The joint statement said the increase “intensifies uncertainty for mills, contractors and forestry-dependent municipalities — many of whom are facing significant ongoing economic challenges.”
The organizations' statement pegged the cumulative cost of U.S. tariffs levied since the expiry of the previous softwood lumber agreement in 2016 at over $10 billion.
NOMA and the Thunder Bay chamber are calling on the federal and Ontario governments to take the following steps, according to their statement:
- Make the softwood lumber dispute an urgent national priority and “engage with U.S. officials for a fair and timely resolution”
- Accelerate legal challenges under North American free trade agreements and through the World Trade Organization to overturn the tariffs
- Work with stakeholders in the forestry sector to mitigate further harm and provide economic supports for communities.
Thunder Bay Chamber of Commerce president Charla Robinson called the new duties “a massive increase,” saying they’re two-and-a-half times higher than what was in place.
“It's a huge cost — an additional cost — to the local forest industry that is selling lumber into the States,” she said. “We're really concerned about how this is going to impact local industry and the jobs and businesses that work and depend on the forest sector.”
“This is really an unjust duty.”
Dumas said he’s pleased with what senior levels of government — including Prime Minister Mark Carney and Premier Doug Ford — have been saying about the ongoing tariff war with the U.S.
“I think we're presenting all our eggs in a basket, in a sense, to say clearly we're here to make a deal like we had in the past with the free trade deals we've done with the United States and Mexico,” he said.
“But yet we have an individual next door who wakes up and says, ‘I'm going to change the world’ and makes a decision overnight — and then he does, and he changed his mind, as we know, many, many times.”
-With files from Justin Hardy
