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Standing Committee on International Trade (CIIT)
“Recent Developments Concerning the Canada–United States Softwood Lumber Trade Dispute”
Good morning, members of the Standing Committee on International Trade, members of Parliament, and guests. My name is Lana Payne and I am President of Unifor, Canada’s largest private sector union, with more than 320,000 members across the country, working in every major sector of the Canadian economy.
Our 22,100 forestry sector members are spread across 10 Canadian provinces, working in a variety of forestry and logging occupations, as well as wood product and pulp & paper manufacturing facilities.
Quebec has the highest concentration of forestry membership, accounting for 55% of our overall sectoral membership, while Ontario and British Columbia account for 22% and 14%, respectively. And of course, we have mills in operation in Atlantic Canada and the Prairies.
I’d like to remind the Committee that, while the softwood lumber dispute poses a clear and present danger, Canada’s forestry sector continues to experience a perfect storm of repeated and intersecting crises, and a combination of economic, environmental, and global challenges continues to destabilize the broader forestry sector.
Forest fires were less destructive this year but still bad.
Important conservation efforts continue to complicate long-term planning for the sector.
Volatile and flat prices are still making companies think twice about investments.
And new EU regulations could negatively impact the ability of Canadian forest products to be sold in that market and around the world.
All these crises have been disastrous for forestry workers, their families, and their communities.
The recent doubling of combined duty rates, and the looming threat of further upcoming increases, are a devastating blow to Canada’s forestry sector. We are certain that we will see workplace closures as a result of these increases. And this is without contemplating the additional 25% across-the-board tariffs threatened by Trump, which – if imposed – will cripple the sector.
Forest sector stakeholders in Canada have not always formed a unified front on this issue, and this is particularly true of the forest companies themselves. For example, we are deeply concerned to see some Canadian forest companies divert investments into their US operations while pulling up stakes here in Canada and abandoning their Canadian operations.
However, it’s important to recognize that playing the blame game won’t help forest workers and their families, and the hundreds of communities across the country that rely on forestry for their survival. The fundamental challenge we face is the overwhelming imbalance of power in our trade relationship with the U.S. No amount of finger pointing or blame-shifting here in Canada will change the fact that the U.S. controls all the chips in this dispute.
But certainly, not all hope is lost. Despite the increase in output by U.S. softwood producers, U.S. lumber companies still don’t have enough capacity to meet all of that country’s lumber needs.
The U.S. homebuilding industry still needs Canadian softwood and these punishing tariffs are driving up construction costs and making home ownership less affordable for working Americans. We have allies in our fight and we have reasonable arguments to make in our favour.
It is critical that our elected leaders, governments across the country, forest workers and their unions, and other forestry sector stakeholders come together and focus on finding solutions to this unfortunate and unnecessary dispute.
I would like to close my comments on a note of hope and optimism, which are in short supply in too many discussions of Canada’s forestry sector. The softwood lumber dispute drives home that simple fact that Canada’s forestry sector is over-reliant on first order, raw resource extraction.
We have an incredible opportunity to promote, support and invest in higher-level production, where we create value-added forest products and systems right here in Canada.
Innovative products and systems like engineered wood products, mass timber frame construction, modular components, and bio-fuels represent an incredible opportunity to grow the sector, create new forestry jobs, and increase economic development activity and productivity.
What we need is a coordinated, comprehensive and inclusive industrial strategy to help transform our forestry sector. The most ambitious and bold redevelopment strategy in modern times.
And that will require a whole-sector, team approach involving governments of all levels, forest companies and industry groups, Indigenous communities, academics and experts, conservationists, forestry schools, forestry workers and their unions, and local communities.
And not only will this transformation mean better jobs, more sustainable forests, and more responsible economic development, it will also better insulate us from the ongoing threat of continued softwood tariffs.
Watch additional clips of Lana's responses to MP questions on X.
