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Forest industry ‘disappointed’ with groundwood paper duties

March 14, 2018 - Last night, the U.S. Department of Commerce imposed preliminary anti-dumping duties up to 22.16 per cent on imported Canadian uncoated groundwood paper (newsprint).

On behalf of the workers in our sector, Forest Products Association of Canada is disappointed in this outcome and strongly believes that these duties are completely unjustified and represent a costly and losing proposition for workers and paper customers on both sides of the border.

FPAC applauds the swift response issued last night from Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland and Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr – they unequivocally defended Canada’s interests.

In addition to strongly defending Canadian workers and businesses against these unfounded duties imposed by our U.S. neighbours, FPAC is calling on the Trudeau government to do the following:

• Continue efforts to support industry’s efforts to aggressively diversify export markets.
• Partner with FPAC and Canada’s forest products sector and our workers to further enable the transformation of our sector into new and innovative product areas.
• Activate employment support programs for any Canadian workers who might be impacted in the event of reduced shifts or job losses.

As it has with the softwood lumber dispute, this trade action will bring real harm to U.S. workers and businesses, impacting over 600,000 American jobs. We applaud the leadership of the many Democratic and Republican U.S. Senators, and the publishers of over 1,000 small and medium-sized U.S. newspapers who have demanded that Washington not impose countervailing and anti-dumping duties on Canadian newsprint exports.

Canada is the largest exporter of newsprint in the world. According to the Government of Canada’s Trade Data Online, Canadian uncoated groundwood and newsprint paper exports to the United States totaled about $2 billion CAD in 2017.

March 14, 2018  By Derek Nighbor CEO - Forest Product Association of Canada