The Canadian International Trade Tribunal opened a final injury inquiry into Chinese building wire on Thursday after border officers issued preliminary determinations, putting provisional duties on a product that goes into almost every house Canada builds
OTTAWA, July 31, 2026
The Canadian International Trade Tribunal initiated a final injury inquiry on Thursday into the dumping and subsidizing of certain unarmoured building cables from China, acting on notice from the Canada Border Services Agency that preliminary determinations had been made in both investigations. The inquiry, docketed as NQ-2026-003, will conclude with a determination on November 26, 2026 as to whether the Chinese imports have caused injury or retardation to Canadian producers, or are threatening to cause injury.
The procedural step is routine. Its consequences for the Canadian construction supply chain are not.
Preliminary determinations under the Special Import Measures Act trigger the immediate collection of provisional duties on subject goods, and they do so before the Tribunal has ruled on injury. Border officers were required to decide whether to issue preliminary determinations or terminate the investigations on or before July 29 following an extension granted on June 8, and the Tribunal’s July 30 notice confirms they issued.
“This final injury inquiry was initiated further to a notice received from the Canada Border Services Agency stating that preliminary determinations had been made respecting the dumping and subsidizing of the above mentioned goods,” the Tribunal said in a release signed by Acting Registrar Morgan Oda.
The agency’s own estimates from the initiation phase indicate how large the provisional exposure could be. In its Statement of Reasons issued March 31, the border agency estimated that subject goods from China were dumped by 52.3 per cent, expressed as a percentage of the export price, and that the estimated amount of subsidy was 44.9 per cent of the export price. Those are initiation estimates rather than the exporter specific rates that will govern provisional collection, but they establish the order of magnitude an importer of Chinese building wire should be provisioning for.
What the goods are
The product at issue is ordinary residential and light commercial building wire, the cable pulled through the studs of Canadian homes. The formal definition covers unarmoured building cables and conductors for use in unarmoured building cables, defined as an assembly of two or three insulated copper or aluminum electrical conductors, plus a metallic conductor intended for use as a bonding wire, jacketed with a thermoplastic or thermoset, with or without connectors.
Four conditions apply. Each insulated conductor must have a voltage rating greater than 80 volts and not exceeding 300 volts. Each must be sized no smaller than American Wire Gauge 14 and no larger than AWG 2. The cable’s primary purpose must be the distribution of electric current to power lighting, appliances, electrical sockets and like items. And the cable must be certified to meet applicable Canadian standards by a recognised certifying body.
In practical terms the definition captures two familiar types: NMD90, used for concealed wiring in dry and damp locations rated to 90 degrees Celsius, and NMWU, rated for underground, wet and corrosive installations. The governing standard is CSA C22.2 No. 48.
The exclusions matter as much as the inclusions. Lengths under two metres are out. So are extension cords with permanently attached connections at both ends, wire and cable permanently installed in vehicles and mobile equipment other than NMD90 and NMWU types, wiring harnesses, and wire and cable used as an input in manufacturing mechanical or electrical products, though not cable installed as part of a modular construction assembly. Data, signal, information and communications cable are expressly outside the definition.
Subject goods normally enter under tariff classification numbers 8544.49.00.19 and 8544.49.00.90. Where they arrive as conductors for further processing into building cable, they may also enter under 7408.11.10.00, 7408.19.00.10, 7605.29.00.00 and 7614.90.00.00. The agency has cautioned that these classification numbers also include non subject goods and that subject goods may fall under additional numbers, which puts the burden of accurate self assessment squarely on importers.
The agency concluded that subject goods and like goods constitute only one class of goods, a finding that simplifies the Tribunal’s injury analysis but also means there is no obvious internal boundary an importer can argue its way behind.
The complaint and the industry behind it
The investigations began on March 16 following a complaint filed on February 11 by PTI Cables Inc. of Pointe-Claire, Quebec. The border agency notified the Government of China on February 24, provided the non-confidential subsidy complaint and offered consultations under Article 13.1 of the Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures. No request for consultations was received.
Three other Canadian producers were identified and all three support the complaint: Domtech Inc. of Trenton, Ontario; Nexans Canada Inc. of Thornhill, Ontario; and Northern Cables Inc. of Brockville, Ontario. Electro Cables Inc., also of Trenton, has been acquired by Nexans. The agency identified four additional firms with potential capacity, including Belden Canada, Can Cable of Pitt Meadows, British Columbia, and Prysmian Cables and Systems Canada of Johnstown, Ontario, which indicated it did not produce building cable between 2023 and 2025. Independent research by the agency found no other Canadian producers.
Collectively the complainant and the supporting producers account for a majority of Canadian production of unarmoured building cable in 2025, which satisfied the standing requirements of subsection 31(2) of the Act.
The workforce is partly unionised. Northern Cables employees are represented by OPSEU Local 493, Domtech by Unifor Local 887, and Nexans Canada by International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 636 Unit 44 and United Steelworkers Local 6717. PTI’s employees are not unionised.
The scale of the outreach gives some sense of how fragmented the import channel has become. The agency identified 129 potential exporters or producers of subject goods and 145 potential importers, and sent requests for information to all of them.
A market share shift in two years
The numbers the agency published are percentages only. Absolute volumes, values and dollar market size were withheld because the underlying data came from a limited number of Canadian producers and could not be divulged for confidentiality reasons.
Even in percentage form, the trajectory is stark. China’s share of Canadian unarmoured building cable imports rose from 8.4 per cent in 2023 to 29.1 per cent in 2024 before easing to 24.3 per cent in 2025 on one of the agency’s two import measures. On the second measure the movement runs from 10.5 per cent to 33.8 per cent to 31.0 per cent. Imports from other countries consist predominantly of imports from the United States.
The market share table tells the sharper story. Sales from Canadian production fell from 66.1 per cent of the apparent Canadian market in 2023 to 58.1 per cent in 2024 and 43.6 per cent in 2025. China’s share climbed from 3.6 per cent to 14.2 per cent to 17.5 per cent across the same three years. Total imports rose from 33.9 per cent of the market to 56.4 per cent.
In other words, Canadian producers lost 22.5 percentage points of their home market in two years while Chinese product gained 13.9 points and imports as a whole gained 22.5.
There is an internal inconsistency in the published document worth flagging. The captions on all three tables state that figures are expressed as a percentage based on value, yet the accompanying text describes the market share table as reporting the apparent Canadian market by volume. Practitioners citing these figures should note the ambiguity.
The agency said it would continue to gather and analyse volume and value information over the period of investigation, January 1 to December 31, 2025, and refine its estimates.
How the dumping margin was built
The methodology is unusual and worth understanding, because it constrains what the final determination is likely to look like.
Normal values could not be estimated under section 15 of the Act, which relies on comparable domestic sales in the exporting country, because building cable destined for Canada must meet CSA or cUL standards while Chinese domestic cable meets China Compulsory Certification. No comparable domestic sales exist.
The agency therefore used a constructed cost approach under paragraph 19(b), describing it as “a conservative and reasonable basis for estimating the margin of dumping at this stage.” The complainant had estimated normal values two ways, under paragraph 19(b) using Chinese costs and under subparagraph 20(1)(c)(ii) using Mexico as a surrogate, for five product models on a quarterly basis through 2025. Both the complainant and the agency applied a one quarter lag to normal values and expressed them in dollars per kilogram.
The cost build relied on the monthly Chinese cathode spot price plus a rod processing fee multiplied by copper weight per metre for the conductor; the complainant’s own PVC costs reduced by 2 per cent to reflect the average historical price difference between Chinese and American PVC; the complainant’s unadjusted nylon cost, since no Chinese pricing was available; and a labour assumption that Chinese labour costs run at 40.3 per cent of Canadian wages.
Financial ratios came from the published statements of five Chinese cable producers: GuangDong Rifeng Electric Cable, Hebei Huatong Wires and Cables Group, Henan Tong-Da Cable, Baosheng Science and Technology Innovation and Shanghai Morn Electric Equipment. Averaged over the four quarters to the third quarter of 2025, those produced selling, general and administrative expenses of 5.3 per cent, financial expenses of nil, other expenses of 0.1 per cent and profit of 5.4 per cent.
The comparable Mexican figures, drawn from Condumex Group and Viakon, were dramatically higher: SG&A of 20.1 per cent, financial expenses of 3.5 per cent and profit of 32.9 per cent. Had the agency adopted the surrogate country approach the complainant proposed, the estimated margin would almost certainly have been considerably larger than 52.3 per cent.
A section 20 inquiry was initiated the same day as the dumping investigation, examining whether domestic prices in China’s electric cables sector are substantially determined by government. The agency selected Australia, Mexico, South Korea, Thailand and the United States as potential surrogates. China is a prescribed country under section 17.1 of the Special Import Measures Regulations. If the section 20 inquiry produces an affirmative finding at the final determination stage, normal values would be reconstructed from surrogate country data, and the margins could move sharply upward.
Fifty subsidy programmes
On the subsidy side, the complainant could not estimate benefits programme by programme and instead calculated the difference between estimated total cost of production and the export price of Chinese building cable sold into Canada during 2025.
The complaint alleged subsidisation under eleven headings, drawing on prior Canadian subsidy findings, a 2019 United States Department of Commerce investigation and 2025 sunset review of aluminum cables from China, and a 2023 Australian Anti-Dumping Commission inquiry into PVC flat electric cables from China. Within those headings it identified 22 special economic zones in which building cable producers are located, 88 grants and grant equivalents, 20 preferential tax policies, 8 preferential loan and financing programmes, one equity programme and 11 programmes providing relief from duties and taxes on inputs, materials and machinery. It further alleged upstream subsidisation of copper, aluminum and petrochemical inputs passing through to cable producers, and stated the list was not exhaustive.
The border agency conducted its own review and identified 50 potentially actionable subsidy programmes that may have benefited Chinese producers and exporters of unarmoured building cable, grouped into five categories: preferential loans, loan guarantees and loan programmes; grants and grant equivalents; preferential tax programmes; relief from duties and taxes; and the provision of goods and services by the Government of China. The agency noted that many of these are programmes it has already countervailed in previous subsidy investigations concerning goods from China.
The injury record
The complaint alleged six categories of injury. The agency found five sufficiently supported and linked to the allegedly dumped and subsidised imports, and rejected one.
Accepted were increased import volume and lost market share, lost sales combined with price depression and undercutting, adverse impact on financial performance, adverse impact on production and capacity utilisation, and adverse impact on investment. Rejected was the allegation of adverse impact on employment, where the agency concluded the complaint “does not sufficiently link the injury factor of an adverse impact on employment to the allegedly dumped and subsidized goods.”
The pricing narrative in the record is unusually detailed and reads as a case study in how a low priced import can reset a national price floor through a single large retail channel.
According to the complaint, Costco entered the Canadian building cable market in 2024 with large volumes of underpriced cable, predominantly from China, which disrupted national pricing, and quickly became the price leader. It sources from importers identified as Spectra and Cardiff. By mid-2025, the complaint states, Costco’s retail prices were undercutting PTI’s distributor prices, which in turn forced Home Depot, Rona and Canac Marquis either to lower their own prices or to shift to imports. PTI’s customers began citing Costco pricing when seeking quotations.
A second importer, identified as Imperium, is alleged to have undercut PTI’s prices through circulating price lists, prompting distributors to demand that PTI match, with the complaint stating that Imperium’s inventory alone represented a substantial share relative to PTI’s annual sales.
Home Depot, which the complaint says historically sold only North American cable at fair prices, is alleged to have repeatedly reduced its prices on North American made building cable through 2025 to the point where those products were likely being sold with little or no profit, and by late 2025 was selling Chinese cable at prices below PTI’s already depressed prices.
Four lost sales were documented through confidential customers. In one, a long standing distributor’s 2025 quotation requests were aligned to Chinese import prices well below PTI’s selling prices, PTI lost the order, and in early 2026 the customer confirmed it had begun importing directly from China. In another, PTI lowered already reduced prices on a July 2025 NMD90 quotation but remained above Chinese import prices and lost the order. A third involved a significant volume lost to offshore cable understood to be sourced from China, which the complaint says contributed materially to PTI’s 2025 injury. A Quebec distributor described pressure from Canac Marquis selling low priced cable, and the complaint observed that high price sensitivity in the building cable market means small price differences are sufficient for customers to switch suppliers.
A July 2025 flyer from a retailer identified as Electric Supplies advertised NMD90 14/2 below PTI’s distributor pricing, with a direct quote lower still, and the retailer reported that most customers were now choosing cable made in China.
On financial performance, the complainant supplied its income statement for domestic building cable sales from 2022 through 2025, which the agency found supported the allegation of reduced profitability. No loss figures or margins were published. On capacity utilisation, the complainant stated that without the alleged unfair competition its 2025 rate would have remained closer to its 2024 level. No percentages were published.
The agency declined to address whether the dumping and subsidising threaten to cause injury, citing administrative efficiency, having already found a reasonable indication of actual injury.
The industry context
Canada’s wire and cable sector is small and structurally import dependent. Industry statistics compiled by Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada from Statistics Canada data put manufacturing shipments for communication and energy wire and cable manufacturing, NAICS 335920, at $2.3 billion in 2023, with value added of $782.1 million and total salaries of $222.9 million. Trade figures for 2024 show exports of $608.4 million against imports of $1.9 billion, roughly a three to one import deficit.
The broader electrical equipment, appliance and component manufacturing subsector, NAICS 335, recorded manufacturing shipments of $14.1 billion in 2023, up 7.7 per cent from the prior year, with value added of $6.0 billion. Of 1,214 employer establishments in 2025, only twelve had 500 or more employees. Ontario hosts 526, Quebec 341 and British Columbia 169.
Recent monthly data show the subsector under pressure. In the Monthly Survey of Manufacturing for May, released July 15, Statistics Canada reported that “sales in the electrical equipment, appliance and component subsector posted the largest decline, decreasing 5.8% to $1.4 billion in May,” attributing the drop primarily to lower than usual seasonal sales and describing the decrease as broad based across multiple industry groups. Sales were still 8.1 per cent higher than a year earlier.
Cherith Sinasac, director of government affairs at Electro-Federation Canada, described the sector’s exposure to the wider tariff environment on July 23. “Since we signed NAFTA, we have seen an integration of our supply chains for electrical and automation products, both in Canada and the U.S.,” she said. “We rely on each other.”
She linked the trade friction directly to electrification capacity. “The projection is to double our electrical supply in both Canada and the U.S., and in order to achieve that, we need to have secure supply chain scaling. The tariffs increases the cost for everyone and it prevents us from expanding and investing in the infrastructure that we need in both Canada and the U.S. in order to be energy secure.” Her prescription was domestic: “We can control our competitiveness here at home. We need to reward those companies who are making the investment here in Canada.”
Electro-Federation Canada has publicly identified wire and cable among the product categories its members expect to be affected by the expanding American tariff regime, alongside transformers, electric vehicle chargers, motors and generators, lighting and heating equipment.
Where the duties land
The demand side context complicates the political economy of this case. Provisional duties on a construction input arrive as Canadian building costs are already rising and housing starts are falling.
Statistics Canada’s Building Construction Price Indexes for the second quarter, released July 24, named trade policy explicitly among the pressures on the sector. “The construction industry faced several challenges in the second quarter, as geopolitical tensions drove higher oil prices; retaliatory tariffs between Canada and the United States disrupted supply chains; regulatory uncertainty delayed purchases; and seasonal construction projects further intensified demand for an already constrained skilled trades workforce,” the agency reported, adding that “metal and steel products continued to lead cost increases due to the upward price pressure associated with implemented retaliatory tariffs and the related supply chain disruptions.”
Residential construction costs rose 0.5 per cent in the quarter and 2.3 per cent year over year, with metal fabrications up 2.1 per cent, the largest divisional increase. Non-residential costs rose 1.4 per cent and 3.5 per cent year over year.
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation reported total housing starts for June at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 238,971 units across all areas, down 6 per cent from May, with actual starts in centres of 10,000 or more down 13 per cent year over year. Its summer outlook, published July 22, forecasts 241,400 starts in 2026 falling to 223,400 in 2027 and 211,900 in 2028, noting that “subdued housing demand will also weigh on new construction” and that “ongoing U.S.-Canada trade uncertainty will likely weigh on business investment and hiring decisions.”
Investment in building construction stood at $23.4 billion in May, down 0.3 per cent on the month but up 5.9 per cent year over year, with residential investment down 0.5 per cent to $16.2 billion and single family down 1.9 per cent.
The Canadian Construction Association reported on July 30 that construction sector gross domestic product contracted 1.3 per cent in the first quarter. Rodrigue Gilbert, the association’s president, framed the pressure in operational terms. “The construction industry continues to build through uncertainty, but contractors are facing increasing pressures in getting the job done,” he said. “Slowing economic growth along with a volatile trade environment are creating added costs and administrative burdens across the industry.”
Practical implications
For importers of Chinese building cable, the exposure is immediate and retroactive in one respect. Under the Special Import Measures Act, duties may be applied retroactively to goods imported in the ninety days preceding preliminary determinations where massive importation is found. Importers who accelerated shipments through the spring in anticipation of the case should assess that risk now rather than after the final determination.
Four steps are worth taking in the near term.
Classification review comes first. Because the agency has warned that the six listed classification numbers include non subject goods and that subject goods may fall elsewhere, importers of any cable product in the 8544 range, and of copper and aluminum conductors under Chapters 74 and 76, should test their product against the four part definition and the exclusion list rather than relying on tariff line alone. The exclusion for cable used as a manufacturing input, and the carve out within it for modular construction assemblies, is a likely area of dispute.
Second, exporter specific rates matter. Provisional duties are assessed at rates specific to cooperating exporters where sufficient information is provided, and at an all others rate otherwise. Importers should establish immediately whether their supplier responded to the agency’s requests for information. With 129 potential exporters contacted, response rates are likely to be uneven, and the difference between a cooperating supplier’s rate and the residual rate can be decisive.
Third, participate. Any interested person, association or government wishing to take part in the Tribunal’s inquiry may do so by filing Form I, the Notice of Participation. Importers, distributors and retailers have standing to argue against an injury finding, and the November 26 determination will be made on the record before the Tribunal. The agency’s final determination on dumping and subsidising is due within ninety days of the preliminary determinations, and the Tribunal’s finding not later than 120 days after that point.
Fourth, resource alternative supply. With imports from other countries consisting predominantly of American product, and with the American market itself now subject to unrelated tariff friction in the opposite direction, the substitution path for Canadian distributors is narrower than the headline import share suggests. Domestic capacity exists at PTI, Domtech, Nexans and Northern Cables, but the market share data indicate that domestic producers have been operating below the levels they held two years ago.
For Canadian producers, an affirmative finding in November would restore a measure of pricing discipline in a market the record describes as extraordinarily price sensitive. Whether it arrives in time to matter for capacity utilisation and investment decisions already deferred is the question the Tribunal cannot answer.