by JIM ALGIE
Thursday’s first face-to-face meeting between Canadian Agriculture minister Lawrence MacAulay and U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack would have been very different, no doubt, if Congress had not recently repealed its Country of Origin Labelling (COOL) law for Canadian beef and pork.
As it was, the newly-appointed Canadian minister was able to leave the meeting full of praise for “Canada’s strong, bilateral partnership with the United States.” During a conference call with reporters following Washington talks with Vilsack, who has been U.S. agriculture secretary throughout the administration of President Barack Obama, MacAulay spoke repeatedly and emphatically about the importance of Canada/U.S. trade. He valued cross-border trade at about $50 billion annually in agriculture and food alone.
“Our government was very pleased with the U.S. decision to repeal COOL for beef and pork,” MacAulay told reporters during brief remarks before taking questions. “The resolution removes significant, long-standing disputes between our two countries,” he said.
That refers to a seven-year-long dispute among Canada, Mexico and the United States over American law that required country of origin labels on meat from imported livestock. Through multiple U.S. appeals, World Trade Organization officials ruled repeatedly in favour of Canada and Mexico that the labelling requirements discriminated against imports contrary to U.S. international treaty commitments.
The former Canadian government of Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper had threatened retaliatory tariffs worth as much as $3 billion annually in the absence of U.S. repeal which came only last month. Removing the labelling requirement “will allow industry on both sides to reap the benefits of our integrated markets,” MacAulay said.
Talks with Vilsack also included details of the recently negotiated, Trans-Pacific Partnership which removes certain existing trade barriers and requires ratification by national legislatures in each of the 12 participating nations. MacAulay said he and Vilsack discussed the pact’s pros and cons.
Vilsack indicated his administration’s support for TPP but MacAulay provided little sign of his government preferences beyond a general remark that it has “strongly supported free trade as a way to open markets and create good paying jobs for Canadians.”
Asked about a timetable for ratification, MacAulay said neither he nor Vilsack were willing to predict the outcome of pending legislative decisions.
“You’re likely aware that President Obama called for it in his state of the union address,” MacAulay said, referring to the president’s final address to Congress, Tuesday. “It’s difficult for me to speculate,” MacAulay said of the deal’s future either in Congress or the House of Commons.
“There’s going to be discussion and debate on the floor of the House of Commons before anything takes place,” MacAulay said.
Other subjects of discussion between Vilsack and MacAulay included potential areas of cooperation on matters of agriculture science and technology. As well, the two men discussed the need for science-based, international standards for bio-technology, MacAulay said.
“Prime Minister Trudeau and President Obama have set the tone for relations between our two countries,” the agriculture minister said. “Through our government’s new focus on the relationship Canadian farmers and food processors can look forward to opportunities to come,” MacAulay said. BF
Comments
Lets not cloud things here . We have the Conservatives and Ritz to thank for having the backbone to hold firm on getting the US to repeal COOL .
After almost 8 years of COOL and millions lost by the Beef and Pork Industries.We could of initiated tariffs on US goods years ago but Ritz waited till just before an upcoming election to do it...some backbone!
If you were paying attention to how the "system" works you would realize that tariffs could not have been put in place until this had gone through the process. The US dragged it on as long as they could and I also thank the previous government for the help they gave us...the election had absolutely nothing to do with the repeal of COOL.
The only process l saw was Canadian beef and pork industries getting the shaft over a period of almost 8 years and losses of 100's of millions of dollars and then mere months before a federal election a lot of huffing and puffing about billion dollars worth of tariffs being tagged on the US...of course,predictably it never came about.
I ask, if it was the other way around (and there have been many)you think Canada would have been able to drag our feet for almost 8 years without some sort of US retaliation almost immediately?
Just like livestock producers to still cry and whine with record high prices . You are too used getting money every time you let out a peep under Justine's old man and every Liberal since . Not going to happen this time .
Truth is Canadian beef and pork is subsidized and then dumped in the USA .
There were times in those almost 8 years of COOL that beef prices especially were not high,in fact one of the reasons that Ontario beef numbers are so low these days are because of the low prices of past years,so many producers have exited the industry.
As much as we would like to at times,we can't separate politics and agriculture.The Conservatives brought in both CETA and TPP as election goodies,mere weeks before voters went to the polls,in the case of the TPP it was days! The same can be said of COOL,just months before an federal election it all goes away miracleously...after 8 years of wrangling.
Any subsidies received by Canadian beef and pork never came close to the millions (perhaps billions)lost in a illegal border closing for those two industries.However the conservatives disappearing threat of tariffs against the US was l guess somehow going to make up for those millions lost....ppfff!
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