Fed­eral Nat­ural Resources Min­is­ter Tim Hodg­son says Ott­awa will con­tinue to come to the forestry sec­tor’s aid in the face of pun­ish­ing tar­iffs, even amid threats from the US alleging that Canada is now fur­ther escal­at­ing with new sub­sidies. It’s a threat Hodg­son dis­missed as “hyper­bole.” …Since August, the fed­eral gov­ern­ment has intro­duced over $2.35 bil­lion in meas­ures designed to ensure Canada’s forest sec­tor remains com­pet­it­ive and resi­li­ent in the face of escal­at­ing US tar­iffs. …But it also comes as the US Lum­ber Coali­tion has begun to allege that a wide range of fed­eral and pro­vin­cial pro­grams amount to unfair sub­sidies. … “We are in no way inflam­ing the situ­ation with the Amer­ic­ans by redu­cing the amount of our fibre that goes into com­mod­ity lum­ber by doing other value-added products. That’s actu­ally good for Canada, that’s good for Cana­dian work­ers, and it reduces the amount of wood that gets sent to the United States.”