Forget The U.S. Let's Just Take On Montana

Canadian lumber exporters are already paying about 21 per cent in combined countervailing and anti-dumping duties on lumber exports to the U.S., despite the fact that repeated international trade reviews have found in Canada's favour. The latest negotiation session wound up last week with reports that the lumber lobby is looking for even more, thanks to its obedient politicians in the U.S. federal system. The arguments on the U.S. side seem to have two things in common: they're mostly weak, and they mostly emanate from the great state of Montana. It was a Montana judge who granted an injunction against Canadian live cattle, after it was plain to even those with a really tight cowboy hat that occasional BSE-infected animals can show up on both sides of the border. (The fact that no one in North America has ever actually gotten sick from mad cow disease is seldom mentioned.) On lumber trade, U.S. Senator Max Baucus (Democrat of Montana) has been one of the leading proponents of shaking down the Canadian lumber industry, trade rulings notwithstanding. In a particularly naked display of greed, last year he sponsored legislation to scoop the accumulated duties to give to his benefactors in the U.S. lumber business. The cattle and lumber cases show that things don't always work sensibly south of the border. There's too much purchased influence in their state and federal system, and politicians seem to pander to narrow interest groups even more so than here in Canada. When B.C. introduces open auctions for timber cutting permits to show that market rates are being paid, it doesn't matter to the Americans. If they can shake down the smaller kid for his lunch money, they do. This problem shows up in another cross-border dispute in, of all places, Montana. According to the state newspaper The Missoulian, Governor Brian Schweitzer echoes environmentalists' concerns about expanded coal mining in the East Kootenay, and possible coalbed methane production. Pollution of the Flathead River system is his worry. http://www.campbellrivermirror.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=6&cat=48&id=465223&more= [Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on August 1, 2005]

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