OTTAWA — Lawmakers are urging Canada to appoint a “softwood lumber emissary” and give them the mission of getting American officials onside to resolve the decades-long trade dispute. That’s one of seven recommendations the House international trade committee shared in a new report released Monday afternoon. MPs spent two meetings ahead of summer focused on the anti-dumping and countervailing duties the U.S. has slapped on Canadian softwood lumber. The current combined duty rate on Canadian imports is 7.99 percent. MPs want Ottawa to take “immediate action” to ensure softwood lumber products from private forests are exempt from anti-dumping and countervailing duties. …Structural differences between the American industry (where products are mostly from private lots) and the Canadian (a majority of production comes from publicly owned land) have driven five softwood lumber disputes since 1982. The current one, which started in 2016, is the longest. [This publication requires a subscription to access the full story]