Prime minister Paul Martin says the Americans will pay a heavy commercial price for their BSE protectionism and “harassment” and when they realize it, they will agree to a rational solution by agreeing to open the border.
However, the damage to their commercial interests will have been done, he added, because by then Canada will have developed a more robust domestic beef packing industry that will be able to compete with American product around the world.
“We’ve got to ensure that our (trade) partners understand that harassment is not without its own penalties, that harassment can be costly,” Martin said during an April 19 speech in Gatineau, Que., about the government’s announcement of a new foreign, trade and aid policy.
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He said Canada made a mistake by relying on exports of live cattle rather than developing a domestic packing industry. “That’s a mistake we will not make again, neither in beef nor elsewhere.”
Martin said science and health considerations dictate that the border should be open and the White House agrees, but in Congress “all politics is local and that is what we are fighting against.”
When the border closed almost two years ago after BSE was discovered in Alberta, Canada discovered it had allowed itself to become dependent on access to American packing plants.
That is being corrected, Martin said.
“We are in the process of building up capacity and the net result of that is we will have the capacity once the border opens up to export substantially into the United States,” said Martin in one of his most extensive public comments on the BSE issue.
“U.S. processors are suddenly going to realize that in fact what has happened has not been in their interest and we are also going to have the capacity to target those great markets of Europe, the great markets of Korea and Japan in a way we never had before.”
He said the decision to prolong the border closing will be costly to American packers. “I believe it is that kind of process that will ultimately lead us to a rational solution.”
Martin said Mexico and Canada are united in insisting that the North American Free Trade Agreement have a better dispute resolution method to fight American harassment of imports.
