the ambassador is an idiot, as was the last one who said Canada 'will pay' for not supporting the US's Iraq debacle.

the softwood lumber duty was imposed shortly after Canada sent troops to Afghanistan. and yet note that there is no duty on raw logs being exported to the US (funny that).
after 5 Nafta panel rulings against the US they finally reduced the duty in half (although they still have to return the 5billion$ already paid)..

The best solution would be for Canadian govt should impose an export tax on raw logs.

as far as mad cow, North American beef industry has been integrated for years, it would be naive to assume there is no BSE in US cattle, (as has proven to be the case recently)
second, the embargo was limited to cattle over a certain age and younger beef was still ok.. (this is because the US beef industry cannot meet the demand anyway, nothing to do with risk).