On poor representatives

The CP reports that the first challenge under the Cons' softwood lumber capitulation is set to go to arbitration. And anybody who thought the Cons had already done all they could to put Canada's industry (and provinces) at the mercy of the U.S. has apparently underestimated the Cons' ability to prevent any uppity Canadian interests from intruding on their sellout:

Washington trade lawyer Elliott Feldman, who has acted for Canadian lumber exporters in previous cases, thinks the industry and the provinces will be short-changed by the (new arbitration) process.

Unlike NAFTA panels, they have no legal standing before the London court and must rely on Ottawa to argue their positions.

"Now it'll be federal lawyers defending provincial programs, about which they know nothing," said Feldman...

"We're as happy as we can be under the circumstances," said Bill Thorton, assistant deputy minister for forests at the Ontario Natural Resources Ministry. "I'll confess that it's not an ideal situation. We would rather be there defending our own programs."

That's right: the Cons set up the deal to make sure that industry and the provinces would have absolutely no ability to defend their own interests. Instead, responsibility for defending Canada's position now lies entirely with the same federal government which not only refused to accept Canada's history of wins in previous litigation, but also excluded its own industry from the original negotiation process to make sure that the deal itself would favour the U.S. side, then threatened and cajoled producers into falling into line with the agreement.

Needless to say, there's little reason to think the Cons care any more about Canada's lumber industry now than they did when they first decided to push CFLI's agreement onto it. Which means that with the Cons at the controls for the arbitration process, Canada may be set to follow up its consistent string of victories under the old agreement with an equally long string of losses under the new one.