Cervelo et al. not to be protected by Canada

On Monday, May 29, 2006 Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and International
Trade Minister David Emerson announced that Canada will not impose
special safeguard duties on imports of bicycles and barbeques, despite
the recommendations of the Canadian International Trade Tribunal (CITT).

In article ,
Sandy wrote:

On Monday, May 29, 2006 Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and International
Trade Minister David Emerson announced that Canada will not impose
special safeguard duties on imports of bicycles and barbeques, despite
the recommendations of the Canadian International Trade Tribunal (CITT).

If this is the deal I'm thinking of, it never really would have affected
Cervelo except peripherally.

A huge tariff was proposed for imported bikes cheaper than a certain
price ($200 or $300, I think). This was favoured by those wonderful
folks at ProCycle, makers of such fine brands as Rocky Mountain, CCM,
Mikado, and many more.

Numerous other bike companies and most bike shops opposed it as being
likely to ruin the pricing on the entry level of bike-shop bikes. Also,
it was ridiculous.

Long story short, it's good this one has been thrown over.

--
Ryan Cousineau http://www.wiredcola.com/
"I don't want kids who are thinking about going into mathematics
to think that they have to take drugs to succeed." -Paul Erdos

On Fri, 04 Aug 2006 00:58:03 +0200, Sandy wrote:

On Monday, May 29, 2006 Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and International
Trade Minister David Emerson announced that Canada will not impose
special safeguard duties on imports of bicycles and barbeques, despite
the recommendations of the Canadian International Trade Tribunal (CITT).

Actually, it was not Cervelo that suggested it. It was Procycle as
one of the owners happened to be the brother of one of the ministers
of parliament. Clearly, a conflict of interest in the making!! It
was SO OBVIOUS, even a 3 year old can spell it -- COI.

David.

Sandy wrote:
On Monday, May 29, 2006 Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and International
Trade Minister David Emerson announced that Canada will not impose
special safeguard duties on imports of bicycles and barbeques, despite
the recommendations of the Canadian International Trade Tribunal (CITT).

I would be surprised if Cervelo actually cared, Procycle cared.

At one point Canada had a thriving bike industry, a number of good
names making bikes in most price ranges. Then in the mid ninties the
tiawanese (and some american companies who had their bikes built in
Both Chinas) started dumping low and mid range frames in Canada .. an
anti dumping duty was imposed.. it was supposed to protect canadian
firms but surprisingly or not, Procycle was the only real beneficiary.
Rocky Mountain, Tech, BRC and Maxxam pretty much dissapeared within a
year or two Procycle built a lock on the big box store market and
anything a bit better got more expensive. Retailers saw a huge change
in the market place. Prior to the Duty the majority of "bike shop"
sales (in any area I'm familiar with were for bikes priced in the 349
to 499 range, there the consumer could get a very serious jump in
Quality from the big box store brands that were sold at 249 -299..
Clean Welds, decent hubs, rims,brakes and gear systems all started to
show up at this point.. for those that remember Shimano 200GS started
showing up at 299..300LX at 349

In short it was one of the things caused me to sell my store. Bad and
Stupid set of rules poorly applied.. (actually the way they were
applied was the worst part of the mess they made.)

You should be glad they are gone.

In article ,
David wrote:

On Fri, 04 Aug 2006 00:58:03 +0200, Sandy wrote:

On Monday, May 29, 2006 Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and International
Trade Minister David Emerson announced that Canada will not impose
special safeguard duties on imports of bicycles and barbeques, despite
the recommendations of the Canadian International Trade Tribunal (CITT).

Actually, it was not Cervelo that suggested it. It was Procycle as
one of the owners happened to be the brother of one of the ministers
of parliament. Clearly, a conflict of interest in the making!! It
was SO OBVIOUS, even a 3 year old can spell it -- COI.

David.

Which minister was that?

I'm philosophically opposed to most trade duties, and the concept of
"safeguard" duties (safeguarding what? The public from lower prices?
Zombie jobs that aren't really productive in an already labour-hungry
economy?) is a bit appalling.

Cervelo probably doesn't have an opinion, since they are both very
high-end and very export-oriented. If anything, it probably benefits a
company like Cervelo to have as many cheap starter bikes out there as
possible. Most of the riders of such things won't turn into Cervelo
customers, but any increase in the popularity of bike culture can't hurt.

Procycle is a wide-ranging bike maker. They sell everything from
department-store stuff to Rocky Mountain bicycles, which is to say
high-end mountain bikes (with a reasonably popular road line as well).

The bike shops, those unsung suppliers of jobs, were the most annoyed,
since this threatened to send their low-end bike sales all to heck.
Those bikes probably aren't especially high-margin sales, but they're
probably very useful for a few other purposes, including creating foot
traffic (which then gets convinced to spend a few dollars more on an
even nicer bike) and customers for all the other things in the shop
(helmets, accessories, service, nicer bikes in the future).

The worst part is that this would have hit some domestic bike companies
like Norco: they do much of their assembly in Canada, all of their
design work is in Canada, and they're a huge distributor of both
house-branded and other-label bike stuff (including whole other bike
brands, like Haro for example). Norco probably hasn't built a frame in
Canada in years (aside from prototypes and possibly some custom work;
almost certainly only for their sponsored riders), but they keep at
least one assembly factory (including wheelbuilding machines), plus a
substantial design, distribution, marketing, and administrative staff
employed, and some of those jobs must depend on the many low-end bikes
that Norco sells to the bike-shop market.

To be sure, Norco also has some high-end product: they're another major
player in the freeride/dirt-jump/hucking markets here, and they seem to
have a huge BMX lineup.

--
Ryan Cousineau http://www.wiredcola.com/
"I don't want kids who are thinking about going into mathematics
to think that they have to take drugs to succeed." -Paul Erdos