On September 6th 2016, the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) imposed a temporary tariff on drywall entering Western Canada of between 105.2% to 276.5%, effective immediately.
These charges are a result of a claim by Certainteed Ltd. that Georgia Pacific (GP) and CGC were sewering the market by dumping drywall in Western Canada below the cost that they were selling in the USA.
This temporary tariff will be further studied by an independent board in December 2016 and at that point, a permanent duty will be assessed in January 2017.
Immediately following the announcement, all drywall re-sellers were put on mill allocation, prices raised by the duty amount, and mill lead times went from 3 days to 4 weeks.
Like many other independent retailers – POCO Building Supplies has been forced to raise our prices to reflect our replacement costs, and the likelihood is that we will be forced to impose a further increase early in October when another 16%-30% price increase occurs.
Unlike some of our big-box competitors – we do continue to hold inventory, albeit at an inflated price compared with advertised prices for a product they do not physically have to sell.
If you wish to comment on these charges, please visit:
Canadian International Trade Tribunal
http://www.citt.gc.ca/ (reference ‘Gypsum board’)
CBSA
http://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/sima-lmsi/contact-eng.html
Your local MP may also benefit from your submission. For residents of our home-town of Port Coquitlam – that’s Ron Mckinnon Ron.McKinnon@parl.gc.ca
POCO Building SUpplies will be submitting our own comments to the relevant parties on the unfairness of this action.
We apologize for any hardship or difficulties caused by this action.
Chris Coakley
General Manager, POCO Building Supplies
More Independent articles regarding this subject can be found via links below:
Global News – New tariff driving up the price of drywall by up to 276%…
CBC – Drywall price spike may impact Fort McMurray rebuild…
Global Gypsum – CertainTeed Gypsum Canada responds to anti-dumping complaint and tariffs…
