
Closure of all Rémabec and Arbec plants for an indefinite
period.
One of Canada’s largest lumber producers, Groupe Rémabec,
will temporarily lay off most of its workers as the industry
faces rising United States duties and weakening demand.
The manufacturing division, Arbec Forest Products Inc., is
shutting down indefinitely, leading to more than 1,000 immediate
job cuts. The number may reach 1,400 in the coming weeks,
according to a company statement that blamed “persistent
imbalances in both access to the resource and international
markets.”
Groupe Rémabec employs about 2,000 people and is headquartered
in La Tuque, Quebec, about 300 kilometers north of Montreal.
President Donald Trump’s administration is poised to more than
double the duties on Canadian softwood lumber. The U.S.
currently levies countervailing and anti-dumping duties
totalling 14.4 per cent, but those are poised to rise to 34 per
cent, according to a Department of Commerce memo released in
April.
Those are separate from any other tariffs the White House has
implemented. Trump has talked about adding additional import
taxes on foreign lumber.
U.S. customs deposits on lumber exports by Canadian sawmills
total $10 billion, Rémabec said, with Arbec’s deposits
representing an “astronomical amount.” This “reduces its
competitiveness against its Canadian and American competitors,
given the higher price of roundwood in Quebec,” the company
said.
The company said it’s hoping for “a return to operations as soon
as economic and structural conditions will allow it.”
Rémabec also said a “feeling of exasperation is widespread” in
the Quebec forestry industry over regulations that have created
“an increasingly unstable ecosystem, without predictability or
coherence.” The Quebec government has been trying to modernize
its forestry legislation to improve the business environment,
but has faced concerns from Indigenous communities during the
process.
“The softwood lumber dispute, combined with the uncertainty
caused in particular by President Trump’s uncertainties, is
forcing us to review our ways of doing things,” Quebec Forestry
Minister Maïté Blanchette Vézina said in an email. “Of course,
impediments to forestry activities can create tensions and
supply issues.”
Source:
financialpost.com