Tom Fletcher has covered BC politics and business as a journalist since 1984.Uh oh. BC Premier David Eby is about to launch his own anti-tariff advertising campaign aimed at US citizens.Eby said this week he expects ads targeting US lumber penalties to begin airing some time in November. It’s safe to say they will not mention Ronald Reagan, the Republican icon who helped Brian Mulroney usher in the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement in the 1980s.Eby’s teaser for the BC ad campaign shows stacks of Canadian lumber, overlaid with a simplified graph of “winners” and “losers,” terms US President Donald Trump likes to use. In these ads, the losers are American consumers and the Canadian lumber industry, and the winners are the Russians. .BLACKETT: How the Alberta Law Society is undermining Canadian justice, and what you can do about it.Uh oh.“It’s important to speak directly to Americans looking to build homes or renovate,” Eby said on X in announcing the effort. “Their costs are going up — because Donald Trump has slapped additional tariffs on top of already unfair softwood duties. We didn’t do it, so we shouldn’t wear it.”.Eby has learned some lessons from earlier border skirmishes. When he first dropped the gloves in the tariff battle, he banned US liquor sales to the provincial monopoly wholesaler, but only products from “red states” that voted for Trump. That was an own goal, giving a pass to California wines, the biggest competitor for BC wine, and the ban was soon extended to all US booze.BC’s ad campaign will be “digital,” not spending millions on World Series TV ads as Ontario Premier Doug Ford did with the Reagan spots that prompted a factually challenged Trump tirade and suspension of all trade talks.Eby’s got a better case on lumber trade than Ford has on cars and trucks. US home builders have acknowledged that they can’t produce enough lumber for domestic needs, despite Trump’s simplistic claim that the US has plenty of trees. .HORTON: Possible Christmas election — Will a Liberal ‘austerity’ budget trigger a snap election?.Tighter-grained northern softwood is also a better product, less prone to warping.Decades of punishing US “anti-dumping” duties on Canadian lumber have prompted BC to create its own Crown land timber sales auctions, to no avail. BC lumber companies have expanded into the US to create a truly integrated North American industry, but US producers continue to demand and receive steep border duties.That’s the important difference between tariffs and duties. The US government collects tariffs from US buyers of imports, while duties are ultimately paid to US lumber companies for “injury” claims that have been proven bogus over and over. In Trump’s first term, he stopped appointing US representatives to international trade tribunals, preventing more rulings against the US industry that could interrupt their long and lucrative shakedown of Canada..With both duties and tariffs, it’s US consumers who pay. So Eby is right, just as Prime Minister Mark Carney is right to avoid retaliatory tariffs that would be paid by already hurting Canadians.Unfortunately, even if Eby’s efforts help in removing the latest lumber tariffs, it’s too little and too late. Trump’s administration imposed a 10% tariff on softwood timber and lumber on October 14, applying to all global imports. So it applies to Russian log and lumber imports too, for what that’s worth.BC lumber producers are announcing more closures and layoffs on almost a weekly basis, and the latest US tariff isn’t a huge factor. The latest “anti-dumping” ruling by the US Commerce Department, which is apparently controlled by American lumber barons, singles out Canfor Corp. for a duty of 47.59%..BERNARDO: Saskatchewan’s line in the sand — Ottawa must pay full compensation for confiscated firearms.West Fraser, another big BC player, is subject to 26.47%, combining “anti-dumping” and “countervailing” duties. All other Canadian producers currently face a 35.16% combined duty.Carney frequently responds to questions about his lack of progress in Canadian trade talks by vowing to expand non-US trade and “buy Canadian” where possible. His grand plan to double home construction would get some sawmills back up and running, if it ever happens.Right now, housing starts are forecast to keep declining in Canada, and former Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson, Carney’s new housing minister, doesn’t have any substantial answers on when that might start to improve.Tom Fletcher has covered BC politics and business as a journalist since 1984.tomfletcherbc@gmail.comX: @tomfletcherbc
