NAFTA Softwood Lumber Ruling

The US has decided to disregard a NAFTA ruling that says it has violated NAFTA rules by applying contervailing and anti-dumping duties to Canadian softwood lumber exports. The US has applied the duties because softwood lumber is harvested from publicly owned lands in Canada, while they are harvested from private lands in the US. The US considers the harvesting from public lands a subsidy. I don't know the details of the case, or what the NAFTA rules says about cases like this, but it won't stop me from drawing a conclusion: namely that the US is correct. I'm sure we make the lumber from public lands cheaply available to the lumber industry. I also have a problem with the Canadian government allowing our forests -- that's yours and mine, as it is public -- available for private companies to savage and then sell cheaply to hungry American industries. Here's one time where I actually am agreeing with the US government. I hope the Canadian federal government does what it usually does when confronted by the Americans -- cave in. This is one them when having a yellow streak comes in handy. Let the Americans destroy their own forests if they want.