Ottawa shelves softwood deal for up to a month

[CHIMO]

VANCOUVER — On the eve of its Sunday launch date, the federal government announced it is postponing implementation of its contentious softwood lumber deal with the United States for a month.

In his release, Mr. Emerson also alluded to an impending decision from the U.S. Court of International Trade, which earlier ruled the U.S. government had no right to the duties after NAFTA panels found Canadian lumber posed no threat of injury to U.S. producers.

"If the past tells us anything about this current government and how they're behaving, they're just kind of rummaging around the closet to try and find a big stick to pound in those recalcitrant, unco-operative non-participants," he said.

"I think the worse they get, the worse they'll look, so they're going to have to rethink this very carefully."

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060929.wsoftwood09291/BNStory/National/home

So the Slush Fund is at least delayed if not canned.

The schmucks have gotten themselves into a Catch 22 situation.

http://cbc.ca/asithappens/media/dailyshow/2006-09-29-aih2.ram

9:40 into the piece gives a rundown on the situation.

[formercia]

1. Oh, well, there's plenty of other Treason charges

to nail them with.....Keep an eye out for more plane loads of illegal drugs coming into the US. Someone is going to have to come up with money to pay their minions.

[MrPrax]

2. The Catch 22...

When I heard this I wondered two things: was this just stupidity or was it planned that way?

Emerson's motives in all this is NOT just simply as a rightwing trade minister...this deal is so insanely unfair and the elements go back to Martin's government, that one starts to speculate that was a scam from the 'get-go'; to fill the GOP warchest and destroy any independence of the canadian forest industry.

The feds have never fought this dispute with the same passion as some in the industry have been fighting it. The Tories are a pack of traitors who figure wrapping themselves around the 'troops in Afghanistan' is going to deflect criticism that they are neo-cons whose loyality is to ideology, not Canada.