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With less than a year to go until the Canada-U.S. Softwood Lumber Agreement expires, lines are being drawn on both sides of the border over the future of lumber trade between the two countries.

Canadian producers say they want to extend the agreement, which has brought an uneasy peace to the decades-long lumber war since it was signed in 2006, but their U.S. counterparts say they won’t sign on again.

The U.S. Lumber Coalition, a lobby group representing American lumber companies and timber owners, said last week it’s not going to renew the agreement when it expires next October. It has expressed its anti-deal position to the U.S. government but it has yet to say publicly what it intends to do.

“What should be changed in the agreement? We are not in a position to talk about it at this point,” said Zoltan van Heyningen, executive director of the U.S. Lumber Coalition. “We are not in favor of extending the current agreement because as it is currently structured, we see problems moving forward.”

One of the principal beefs of U.S. producers is that they claim costs – particularly timber costs – have shifted since the agreement was signed yet they haven’t seen that show up in B.C. lumber costs. The U.S. has been complaining since 1982 that Canadian lumber is subsidized through government forest policies. It has filed four trade actions against Canada since then.

From Business Vancouver: http://www.biv.com/article/2014/11/canada-us-loggerheads-again-over-lumber/