Further Measures Announced by Government for Steel Industry on the Safeguard Surtax.

The Department of Finance Canada has announced further measures to protect Canadian steel workers and industry. These measures affect goods that are subject to safeguard surtax (not the surtax that was put into place after the US imposed surtax on imports of Canadian steel).

The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) will update its policy to allow anti-dumping levels to be reviewed more frequently, which will provide effective and up-to-date protection in the face of changing market circumstances. Other policy changes by the CBSA will also result in greater transparency. The CBSA and Global Affairs Canada are also taking steps to enhance the verification of steel import data. These measures build on the recent action taken by the Government to provide more flexibility to further protect Canadian workers from harmful import surges.

New amendments to trade remedy regulations

The Government is also introducing amendments to Canada’s trade remedy regulations.

These new measures will be subject to consultations for 15 days following their pre-publication in the Canada Gazette, Part I, Volume 153, no. 26. These regulatory amendments are expected to provide CBSA greater flexibility to calculate appropriate levels of anti-dumping duties in situations where there are price distortions.

Customs Memorandum D14-1-8 was recently updated to provide a new procedure for submitting representations to the CBSA in respect to the need for updated values as well as a new review process that will be conducted by the CBSA, referred to as normal value reviews. Normal value reviews are similar to re-investigations with the exception that each review is conducted in respect of a single exporter.

Background information on the Re-investigation and Normal Value Review Policy is available here.

Normal Values: Making Representations to the CBSA