The looming railway stoppage threatens Canadian shippers and US supply chains. In related news: businesses and BC’s premier Eby call on Ottawa to prevent the strike, and Conifex Timber will curtail operations in light of transportation challenges. Elsewhere: New Zealand’s Winstone Pulp is closing; a German state’s timber sales violated EU’s competition laws: Tracy Altenbaumer is the new mill manager at Domtar’s Arkansas mill; and Don Hammond is appointed Chair of the New Zealand Wood Processors Association.
In other news: Steven Guilbeault clashes with Quebec over caribou protections; new research on Alberta’s 2023 record wildfire season; a BC ENGO says preserving old growth moderates wildfire risk; Nova Scotia’s urban firefighters say they need wildfire training; Oregon State University feels the heat over its forestry plans; and Michigan State researchers build link between forests and drinking water.
Finally, FSC’s North American conference in Nashville, Tennessee is open for registration.
Kelly McCloskey, Tree Frog Editor
They call it the granddaddy of international trade disputes, and in the latest round, Canada has been hit once again by the U.S. The dispute over exports of Canadian softwood lumber to the U.S. has been ongoing since the early 1980s, with the Americans insisting that the Canadian lumber industry is unfairly subsidized. The U.S. Department of Commerce claims this entitles the U.S. to levy tariffs on lumber. These charges have already cost Canadian producers $10 billion since 2017 and have led to thousands of job losses in Canada. …The Americans are now increasing their current duties on Canadian softwood lumber products from 7.99% to 14.54%. …The U.S. increase is also retroactive, meaning it will apply to 2022 exports as well as future shipments. Canadian industry leaders and governments are outraged. …But if Donald Trump is elected president in November, expect worse. It was under his presidential watch in 2017 that the tariffs went as high as 24%.
Freight trains across Canada could come to a grinding halt as soon as Thursday with roughly 9,000 railway employees nearing a looming strike or lockout date. …The Teamsters Canada Rail Conference issued a news release saying unless the parties can reach a last-minute agreement, workers will be off the job as of 12:01 a.m. Eastern time Thursday. Not long after the union’s statement, CN Rail issued a notice that it intends to lock workers out at that same time unless an agreement or binding arbitration is achieved. The company says no meaningful progress has occurred despite weekend labour negotiations. …Barry Prentice, at the University of Manitoba’s Asper School of Business, said Canada was already feeling the impact of the looming shutdown. …More than half of the country’s exports travel by rail. Industry groups are also warning about the ripple effects of the stoppages on the wider Canadian economy.
The union representing thousands of workers at Canadian Pacific Kansas City says it has served a 72-hour strike notice to the railway. The Teamsters Canada Rail Conference says in a press release that unless the parties can reach a last-minute agreement, workers will be off the job as of 12:01 a.m. Eastern time Thursday. The Teamsters say CPKC has served notice it will lock out its members as well as change the terms of collective agreements, which the union says forces it to serve a strike notice to protect workers. …Shortly after, Canadian National Railway said in a statement it issued a lockout notice to the union and would have “no choice” but to continue shutting down operations. CN said “despite negotiations over the weekend, no meaningful progress has occurred.” Both CPKC and CN have been halting shipments in preparation for potential work stoppages by a combined 9,300 workers at the two railways.
VANCOUVER — The BC Council of Forest Industries calls for all parties – employers, unions, and the federal government – to consider the far-reaching consequences of a railway shutdown and to work urgently towards a resolution.” “Rail transportation is the backbone of our industry, enabling the movement of lumber, pulp, and paper products across North America and to global markets. The potential disruption of these services poses a severe risk to the forest sector and the economic stability of forestry-dependent communities across the province. A simultaneous work stoppage at CN and CPKC could result in tens of millions of dollars in weekly losses for the forest products manufacturing sector.” Niquidet emphasized that the majority of the forest sector’s products rely on rail transport, particularly for exports to the US. “Within the first week of a strike, we could face widespread mill curtailments, further threatening jobs and economic activity in our communities.”
VANCOUVER, BC — Conifex Timber announced that, in light of imminently expected transportation challenges that will affect all Canadian lumber producers for an unspecified period, together with already existing unfavourable market conditions, Conifex is reducing its sawmill operating schedule at its Mackenzie, British Columbia site to a one-shift basis for the foreseeable future and temporarily curtailing its power plant, each commencing on August 26, 2024. We anticipate an end to the curtailment of our power plant by September 30, 2024. …“Unfortunately, a reduced operating schedule at the sawmill is necessary for the foreseeable future due to the combined impact of our inability to ship production on a two-shift basis to end markets for an unspecified timeframe, reduced demand for our lumber products, low lumber prices and punitive lumber export duty impositions,” said Andrew McLellan, President and COO of Conifex.
BURNABY, BC — Interfor announced that it will indefinitely curtail operations at its sawmills in Meldrim, Georgia and Summerville, South Carolina. These curtailments are in response to persistently weak lumber market conditions. Log deliveries will be curtailed immediately, followed by an orderly wind-down of operations, which is expected to be completed by the end of the third quarter of 2024. Both sawmills produce kiln-dried Southern Yellow Pine dimensional lumber and have a combined annual capacity of 330 million board feet. These indefinite curtailments will impact approximately 180 employees across both facilities. Interfor expects to mitigate some of the impact on affected employees. The expected impact of these curtailments on production volume for the remainder of 2024 was included in Interfor’s press release dated 
GERMANY — The State of Baden-Württemberg faces potential liability of up to Euro 500 million following a precedent-setting ruling by the Stuttgart Court of Appeals. On August 15, 2024, the court held the state liable for violating EU competition laws through its centralized sale of timber, in a decision that marks the first time a German court has established civil liability in a major cartel case without a prior decision from an antitrust authority. The case centers on Baden-Württemberg’s decades-long practice of bundling and jointly selling timber from state, municipal, and private forests. The court found that this arrangement restricted competition and led to inflated timber prices, ultimately harming sawmills that depended on the state as a dominant supplier. The next phase of the legal battle will focus on determining the exact compensation owed to the sawmills. The ruling is open to appeal. …Its broader implications, however, may ripple across the European Union.
Statistics Canada’s July consumer price index showed a significant cooling in inflation, with the rate easing to 2.5 per cent — its slowest pace since March of 2021. Economists believe this latest reading cements a 25-basis point cut by the Bank of Canada in September, and they predict further rate cuts before year’s end. …Claire Fan, at Royal Bank of Canada, said “The scope of price pressures continue to normalize — the diffusion index says the breadth of inflation in Canada is looking similar to pre-pandemic norm in 2019.” …Olivia Cross, economist with Capital Economics, thinks core inflation measures may surprise to the downside of the Bank of Canada’s forecasts, which raises the possibility of a steeper policy cut by the central bank later this year.
PRINCE GEORGE, BC – The Honourable Diane Lebouthillier, Minister of Fisheries, Oceans Canada and the Canadian Coast Guard announced the Government’s intention to construct a new Pacific salmon hatchery in Prince George, BC, to support conservation and rebuilding of Chinook and sockeye salmon. The proposed hatchery will be built through federal investments under the Pacific Salmon Strategy Initiative (PSSI) and operated by Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) in collaboration with Lheidli T’enneh First Nation and with support from Canfor Pulp Ltd. Construction is expected to begin this fall on federally administered land on the north bank of the Nechako River, near its confluence with the Fraser River. The proposed conservation hatchery will fill a critical infrastructure gap in the upper Fraser River region, serving to boost survival of numerous at-risk salmon stocks.
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia — The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson, Canada’s Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, and the Honourable Tory Rushton, Nova Scotia’s Minister of the Department of Natural Resources and Renewables, announced a joint investment of more than $40 million to plant up to 21 million trees by 2031 on private and public lands in Nova Scotia. This funding will result in the planting of more than 21 trees for each resident of Nova Scotia. …The funding will strengthen Nova Scotia’s tree-planting supply chain, from seed collection to nurseries to tree planting and monitoring. This work will create hundreds of jobs across the forestry sector in Nova Scotia. Federal funding comes from the 2 Billion Trees program, part of the Government of Canada’s broader approach to nature-based climate solutions. 
