[Khar]

Curtman Curtman:

Khar Khar:

The Canadian government perceived what the Americans did as protectionism which broke FTA regulations, whereas the Americans viewed our wood as being unfairly supported by some form of subsidy (originally suspected to be artificial pricing), and that is what brought us to court, where it was decided that subsidies did not exist.

I notice you are using past tense.

U.S.-Canada lumber trade dispute heating up again

Despite Harper having "solved" this issue four and a half years ago

Harper snookers Liberals with softwood lumber deal

Of course I would use the past tense, considering I mentioned that exact thing on the last page when I referred to the new problems with BC. Since I cannot straight out assume what is currently going on, I instead go by past instances and the trend thereof. I have to use past tense or make the claim that this is constant even though I will not know the outcome for certain of the current hearing, which is also why I mentioned the current BC instance for good measure.

The problem this time are claims that the folks in BC are inadequately defining what they are selling as "salvage" due to the recent bug problems we had in that province, and they are claiming it is a way to get around the normal pricing in the industry and flooding excess goods into the American market, calling the potential price discrepancy a "subsidy" and that the quality of goods here have changed.

Keep in mind that, just as you and desertdude quite rightly pointed out that there was a lack of evidence about the existence of financial subsidies in the history of that organization, there is also a lack of evidence about the existence of a subsidy here -- a hearing is not even called yet, and historically the States has fallen flat when it comes to proving any form of subsidy exists.

Until there is an official result out of London, I would prefer to go with the historical trend since we cannot assume what the result of these hearings will be in either case. I would go by what we have, and that shows that historically, the States have been incorrect about our softwood lumber industry having subsidies since the inception of NAFTA.

Personally, I feel the US is off base. These are the same claims they had last time in regards to pricing, which I also mentioned in previous posts, which were wiped away in legal situations previously overseen by market experts.

If the US is using a market approach, they'd understand why there has been an increase in this type of good due to a supply side shock. This is an expected result of what happened in BC with the bug issue. To me, this sounds more like an attempt at protectionism in the States to protect what is, post-NAFTA, an uneconomical industry in the States in comparison to Canadian yields. After all, previous countermeasures on Canadian goods from America were shown to be well overboard, even before proof that subsidies did not exist came to light in those cases. However, this is a side opinion of mine and does not change anything about what is currently known definitively about Canadian subsidies.

As I said earlier, these situations are different. We are not trying to get away with one down in the States, as you originally implied, we are refuting the existence of subsidies on our goods. Either way, this would not be an ongoing event, as I suggested it is in the UAE, nor would this be a subsidy in the same regards -- an international trade dispute is somewhat different than a company owned by a government (but allowed to act independently) garnering other forms of subsidies than what the Canadian softwood lumber industry is currently accused of.

This is a new accusation based on a unique event, and hence what Harper "fixed" is not this situation. At the time, the problem was not related to a bug infestation of our trees in mainland BC. If you looked over the cases, the US has come forward with a number of other problems over the years, such as quota breaches, which they were correct in -- I also mentioned this in my previous post. Harper knocked back the subsidy claims, but other claims have been made over the years -- they just have not been as broad reaching.

[1Peg]

Curtman Curtman:

I'm really enjoying watching the Harpocrites sling mud at our allies over airline subsidies while at the same time rationalizing lumber subsidies to another.

Our allies?

lol

[redhatmamma]

Bob Rae is going for the express purpose of undermining our gov't, no other reason, but yeah, it's a good chess move on his part as he jockeys to unseat Ignatieff.

[1Peg]

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

We're not in a war on terror. We're in a war in Afghanistan. Apparently the UAE gave us some space to operate a military base.

Camp Mirage is not a Canadian base. We shared this base with other NATO countries. The base was already set up and had US/NATO troops there as a staging point for Afghanistan.

[1Peg]

EyeBrock EyeBrock:

I'm just waiting for Bobby to topple Iggy, then we will see a collapse of Liberal votes in Ontario.

I'm quite certain the people of Ontario and BC are all but done with the Liberals.

[Lemmy]

The single biggest problem in analyzing international trade disputes is that there is no legal definition of a subsidy. The vast majority of all trade disputes involve the accusation that subsidization (that rhymed) has injured a foreign competitor. Subsidization is like masturbation (that rhymed too, I should be a goddamn rapper) : everyone does it, even though they claim not to. But each country differs greatly in the ways that they subsidize their industries.

Canada tends to be very transparent in its subsidization. We just give cheques to industries. That means when Canada goes before the WTO or the NAFTA disputes resolution panel, if we're subsidizing it's easily proved. The USA, on the other hand, tends to be a little less overt in its methods of subsidization (tax breaks, free land, government-provided infrastructure, etc). At disputes hearings, it takes a little more finagling to get the US to admit that its activities are, in fact, subsidies. Until a hard definition of what constitutes a subsidy is written into the law, we can expect these sorts of disputes to prevail.

[Curtman]

1Peg 1Peg:

Curtman Curtman:

I'm really enjoying watching the Harpocrites sling mud at our allies over airline subsidies while at the same time rationalizing lumber subsidies to another.

Our allies?

lol

Oh come on, the Americans aren't so bad.

[Zipperfish]

1Peg 1Peg:

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

We're not in a war on terror. We're in a war in Afghanistan. Apparently the UAE gave us some space to operate a military base.

Camp Mirage is not a Canadian base. We shared this base with other NATO countries. The base was already set up and had US/NATO troops there as a staging point for Afghanistan.

Oh try to follow the fucking context of the argument before chiming in, you dimwit. If you go back and read the post I was responding to, you'll see that you just made yourself look like an idiot.

[Guy_Fawkes]