Statement
April 15, 2019 - Ottawa, Ontario - Global Affairs Canada
The Honourable Chrystia Freeland, Minister of Foreign Affairs, today issued the following statement on a recent WTO dispute resolution panel decision on U.S. duties on Canadian softwood lumber:
"Canada's forest industry sustains hundreds of thousands of good, middle-class jobs in communities across our country. We firmly believe that the U.S. duties on Canadian softwood lumber are unfair and unwarranted. That is why we are challenging these duties at the WTO and under NAFTA.
"We welcome the recent WTO panel ruling that the United States did not follow the rules in calculating its anti-dumping duties on Canadian softwood lumber. The United States must bring its measures into conformity with its WTO obligations.
"Canada will be appealing the WTO panel's separate findings on the U.S. practice of zeroing and its use of the differential pricing methodology. The WTO has ruled more than 20 times that zeroing, a method of calculating and applying artificially high and unfair duty rates, is inconsistent with WTO rules.
"We will continue to work closely with the provinces and territories and our softwood lumber industry to defend our softwood sector and its workers, and we expect to prevail as we have in the past."
