Ottawa - Canada has presented compelling arguments before a World Trade Organization panel that could authorize Canada to impose retaliatory tariffs of over 3 billion dollars of U.S. exports to Canada annually if the United States does not very soon change its country-of-origin labelling (COOL) law for meat to come into compliance with their international trade obligations.
"The Canadian Pork Council compliments the Canadian government delegation on its presentation which relied on facts, rather than hypotheses and assumptions which attempted to trivialize enormous harm COOL has imposed on Canada's livestock industry", said CPC Chair Rick Bergmann.
The Canadian side presented evidence showing Canadian fed hogs exports to the United States fell by more than 80% following the implementation in 2008 of mandatory country-of-origin rules which caused most U.S. processors to cease purchasing Canadian-born livestock.Severe reductions have occurred similarly for feeder pigs as well as Canadian cattle.
Mr. Bergmann pointed out that costs of compliance with COOL requirements are so onerous for U.S. food distribution system that the number of U.S. plants willing to purchase Canadian born pigs fell from over 25 prior to mandatory COOL to just a handful today.
"It has been almost six years since Canada filed its request to the World Trade Organization to adjudicate this dispute", added Mr. Bergmann, who farms in Steinbach, Manitoba. "The World Trade Organization has ruled four times that the U.S.'s COOL rules are discriminatory. The United States needs to deal now with fixing the faulty legislation before allowing steep tariffs to be imposed on a wide swath of its exports to Canada."
Representatives of the CPC, along with Manitoba Pork Council and Ontario Pork, were present at the WTO arbitration panel in Geneva.The report of the Arbitrator is expected November 27.
Source: CPC