CALGARY -- When it comes to the U.S. stance on softwood lumber, Tom Stephens is a cynic about truth, justice and the American way.

Mr. Stephens, a U.S. citizen and former chief executive officer of Vancouver-based MacMillan Bloedel, headed the venerable Canadian forestry firm for two years before it was acquired in a friendly takeover in mid-1999 by Weyerhaeuser of Federal Way, Wash.

He still owns the Vancouver home he bought while serving as CEO at MacMillan Bloedel. He has fallen in love with Canada's West Coast -- a region he visits frequently when he's relaxing away from his base in Denver.

From his vantage point in Colorado, Mr. Stephens fears there isn't any easy way to find a long-lasting solution to the softwood lumber dispute between Canada and the United States.

"Most people don't like bullies, and from time to time, the U.S. acts like a bully on trade issues with Canada," he said in an interview.

Whatever agreement the two sides ultimately work out, the amount of wood flowing south won't be nearly enough for Canada and will be too much for the United States.

It's a Catch-22. The tougher Canada talks, the less likely it is there will be peace in the woods. But, the more concessions Canada makes, the tighter the Americans will squeeze and the less likely it is that Canada would ever agree to enough concessions to keep the United States happy.

"The U.S. softwood industry is a very strong, active lobby that's not really interested in doing what's right," the Arkansas-born Mr. Stephens asserts. "They're interested in keeping as much Canadian lumber out of the U.S. as possible and they'll fight tooth and toenail and basically do whatever they can get away with."

Mr. Stephens, 59, sits on a variety of U.S. and Canadian boards. On the Canadian side, he serves as a director at Calgary-based TransCanada PipeLines and is also deputy chairman and a director at Vancouver-based paper company Norske Skog Canada.

"The frustration I have working with Canadians is that Canadians are wonderful people who believe that truth and justice will prevail," he says.

It's admirable when Pierre Pettigrew, Canada's International Trade Minister, uses the two-by-four metaphor to describe how the United States is hitting us over the head with countervailing duties and anti-dumping duties. But it doesn't amount to much more than political theatrics.

Even attempts to portray the trade spat as one in which the U.S. consumer is getting punished have fallen flat, as U.S. home builders wanting more Canadian lumber get drowned out by the American softwood industry's campaign to save U.S. forestry jobs.

While Washington has appointed a special envoy, Mark Racicot, to speed things along, the U.S. government continues to argue that Canadian lumber benefits from unfair subsidies.

"As an American citizen, I'm embarrassed by our government playing hardball and doing this. It's strictly a policy of intimidation," Mr. Stephens says.

If it were possible for Canada to retaliate without repercussions from the United States, he'd advise the Canadian government to slap an export tax on Canadian natural gas flowing south.

Unfortunately, that tax wouldn't be realistic, so Mr. Stephens reckons that when all is said and done, both sides will end up having to relent at least a little to achieve even a semblance of a temporary resolution to the long-standing lumber fight.

The United States uses a system involving timber rights on private land. So, a good first step would be for Canada to shift toward a market-oriented system of private timber rights, gradually doing away with the "stumpage" fees paid by forestry companies to cut trees down on Crown-owned property.

Mr. Stephens owns some timber land in Arkansas, and points out that Canada's stumpage fees are part of a system that's too arcane for the Americans to wrap their heads around.

Under "managed" trade with quotas, Canada could agree to make some basic changes to the stumpage system and also discuss limiting the amount of wood that gets exported.

Whatever quotas may be set, "it will be difficult if not impossible for the U.S. industry to say it's okay. You have to remember that nothing that Canada does that means selling more Canadian lumber will please the American industry."

Canada should also examine lifting its ban on exporting raw logs.

All this tinkering isn't what Mr. Stephens has in mind for the utopia of free trade in the lumber sector. But because that utopia doesn't exist, Canada is left to compromise and aim for an imperfect, negotiated settlement with the U.S. government.
bjang@globeandmail.ca