International Trade committee  Thank you for the question. Duties only apply to lumber. Logs are not yet a lumber product, so there are no duties. However, Canada also has a log export process by which we monitor the export of logs. The B.C. government has a similar process for logs on provincial Crown lands.

International Trade committee  I'm not aware of any significant reimportation of Canadian lumber back into Canada from Canadian logs that have been exported to the U.S. I assume transportation costs back and forth might make that prohibitive. That's my view. To your question about litigation costs, I'll note briefly that the costs have been in line with those of previous years.

International Trade committee  I don't have the exact numbers in front of me either, but in general, in terms of our exports, I think they've held reasonably steady. Of course, the value of those exports has shot up quite a bit, given the price of lumber. In the past six months we've had the highest-ever recorded value of Canadian exports of softwood lumber products to the United States.

International Trade committee  Thank you for the question. I'm not aware of a specific expert panel that has been formed to look at those particular HS codes. We do work on behalf of specialty product producers. In fact, we did have a recent victory for cedar shake and shingle producers in which we were able to get their products excluded from the duty orders completely by working closely with the industry on that issue.

International Trade committee  Thank you. As has been noted by the minister, we did institute a softwood lumber action plan shortly after the initial duties of over $800 million were implemented, and that was supplemented in 2019 by a further $250 million. Primarily those funds go to the projects that look at innovative products and export strategies to other markets overseas beyond the United States.

International Trade committee  No, I don't have that off the top of my head either, but I can say that the comparator that the U.S. Department of Commerce chooses to use in this instance, as my colleague mentioned, is what we feel is inappropriate, because there are different market conditions, different species in each province and different local markets for those species, so that really does impact the stumpage price in those provinces.

Natural Resources committee  I was going to pass it to Mike, but I'll try it quickly. As I alluded to earlier, British Columbia adopted an auction system, which was partially adopted in an effort to make reforms that were hoped would reduce the potency of U.S. arguments that the B.C. system is providing a subsidy.

Natural Resources committee  Maybe I'll jump in—sorry, Mike—given that it's a bit more of a negotiations question, and in the interests of time.

Natural Resources committee  As Mike alluded to, Canada is very keen to find a permanent solution if one can be found. The U.S. has even indicated at times what sorts of things could be done to help arrive at that, such as reforms within our system to include auctions, which both British Columbia and Quebec have adopted.

Natural Resources committee  I'll try to answer quickly, given the time constraints. Obviously, as has been discussed at length today, we're working very hard to help the industry find new markets for its products. Of course, the United States will always remain the chief market for our products. That is on the basis of geography and also of the cost of transporting lumber over large distances, obviously.

Natural Resources committee  No, I don't believe so. Our view is that obviously the United States depends on our high-quality wood products for their home construction industry, so we see their duties as self-defeating ultimately. I think we're seeing that play out now with high prices, which are not all due to duties certainly, but the duties are contributing partially to those high prices.

Natural Resources committee  Arun, maybe I can jump in.

Natural Resources committee  I think it's fair to say that all of the mills that closed due to the initial shutdowns because of the COVID-19 pandemic back in April and May have reopened. Employment is back up to pre-pandemic levels. There were shutdowns and curtailments at different mills in British Columbia.

Natural Resources committee  I don't have the statistics related to the job losses in front of me, but I understand there were job losses, primarily in British Columbia, due to those fibre supply issues. The jobs were not replaced with jobs in the United States per se, because not all of those mills would have opened operations in the U.S. to compensate.

Natural Resources committee  Hello and thank you. I'm Colin Barker and I'm the director of the softwood lumber division at Global Affairs Canada. The high lumber prices at the moment are insulating companies against the impact of the duties, certainly, so that is helping companies weather the current situation.