Manitoba Pork Urges Ottawa to Defend Canadian Agricultural Trade

The General Manager of Manitoba Pork is calling on the Government of Canada to do more to ensure international trade agreements, like the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, work as intended for Canadian agriculture.

An article circulated through Manitoba community newspapers and posted to Manitoba Pork's web site examines international trade, the role of Canadian agriculture in the global market and the level of priority being placed by government on securing access to overseas markets for Canadian agricultural products.

Cam Dahl, the General Manager of Manitoba Pork, says the fears of farmers that their trade interests will not be a priority are justified.

Quote-Cam Dahl-Manitoba Pork:

We're in favor of free trade agreements because they do help us keep markets open but not all of them work as we thought they would. The EU agreement is one example.The EU is using other measures, health measures or sanitary measures to keep our red meat products out and I'll give you an example.We wash carcasses with citric acid to make sure that there's no bacteria.

It's a food safety measure.It's a very good food safety measure but the EU hasn't approved that and so they don't accept our meat.There's lots of measures like that that have meant that the Canada EU trade agreement hasn't benefitted Canadian agriculture really at all.It's benefitted EU agriculture.

They're exporting, more to Canada but the gains that we thought we would see from more efficient trade and fewer barriers with Europe really haven't been realised because the EU is using other means to block trade.So, we need our government to focus on making agreements like CETA work like we expected them to and to stand up and fight for Canadian agriculture.

Dahl notes Ottawa has seen fit to offset the impact of trade agreements on other sectors of the economy and the same consideration should be given if our agricultural exports become political targets.The article can be accessed through Manitoba Pork's web site at ManitobaPork.com.