THUNDER BAY — Duelling tariffs between Canada and the United States is generally not good news for Northwestern Ontario’s forestry sector, says the chair of the corporation that holds the sustainable forest licences for two area forests.
However, Laird Van Damme, the chair of the board of the Nawiinginokiima Forest Management Corporation, said that he’s a “pathological optimist” and that the sector, overall, is quite resilient. The corporation holds the sustainable forest licences for the Pic Forest and White River Forest, east of Thunder Bay.
“I mean, there are challenges, you know, the forest industry has been facing many problems,” he said. “Pulp worldwide is quite affordable and moves easily across borders — that's a big deal for us.”
“Pulp mills that have closed across northern Ontario, that's a serious problem for people that want to deliver chips from sawmills, but I've seen interesting opportunities with new investors, new ideas about what to do with forest products, so we'll see.”
The forestry sector is one of many areas that are now subject to new and higher costs to sell their products in the U.S. President Donald Trump announced a 25 per cent tariff on Canadian goods effective Tuesday (10 per cent for Canadian energy). In retaliation, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a range of tariffs on more than $100 billion of American goods coming into Canada.
One thing to note, Van Damme said, is that the softwood lumber part of the region’s forestry industry has been subject to American tariffs for decades, despite free trade agreements being in place.
The chairman, who is half American, said demand from the U.S. for Canadian forestry products, whether it be softwood lumber, pulp, paper or other products, will still be there, and that Canada does have other options.
“Americans are going to buy the wood anyway and they'll pay an extra price for it,” he said. “They grow, of course; they have fine timberlands, good forests, good management.”
“They have good mills, but ours are quite efficient. We have vast resources, and we also have trade routes to other countries too that they ought to think about.”
The retaliatory tariffs, meaning an extra cost on affected American goods crossing the border into Canada, could impact operations like mills and other areas of the forestry sector, Van Damme said, as parts for the plants are often imported from the United States, meaning they will be more expensive.
“They go back and forth many times, including the heavy equipment that we use to harvest the trees and the trucks that haul the trees,” he said. “But the mill processing plants, there's a lot of technology that goes back and forth between the borders, so no one wins in a war — no one wins in a trade war.”
“This is really terrible stuff.”
Van Damme compared that interconnectedness to an ecosystem, meaning how intertwined everything is makes the situation very complex.
“Nothing (that) happened last night is good,” he said. “But as I said, I'm an optimist.”
“We might be more resilient than we imagine with other markets, and demand that won't stop anyway, even with the higher prices.”
