Canada's unfair lumber subsidies have for decades harmed the U.S. lumber industry, threatening its workers with mounting unemployment, and denying many tree farmers a market for their timber crops. The impact of these subsidies is apparent everywhere. To learn more about Canada's lumber subsidies, and how to restore fair and free lumber trade between the two countries, see the other pages of this website. You'll see why even many Canadians agree that Canada isn't playing fair in softwood lumber.

On October 12, 2006, the second U.S.-Canada Softwood Lumber Agreement (SLA) came into effect and terminated more than 20 different legal disputes surrounding Canada’s softwood lumber subsidies and below cost of production sales in the U.S. market. The U.S. Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports, an alliance of large and small lumber producers from around the country, supports the SLA.

The agreement encourages Canadian provinces to abandon their long-standing practices of subsidizing Canadian lumber production. These unfair trade practices have caused hundreds of U.S. lumber mill closures, thousands of U.S. job losses, and have suppressed the market for thousands of private timberland owners. The Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports hopes that the SLA will provide the mechanism by which to find a permanent solution to this unfortunate dispute between two great trading partners.