The Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities wants the border opened to beef, but not the same border everybody else is talking about.
In his president’s address to the 2004 midterm convention, Neal Hardy said it is time to relax rules governing the interprovincial trade of beef.
Farmers are rightfully frustrated by the delay in reopening the American border due to the ongoing BSE crisis, said Hardy.
But they should be equally vexed by Canadian regulations that only permit interprovincial trade of beef from federally inspected plants.
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“We close our own borders to our own beef and it doesn’t make any sense,” said Hardy.
He can’t understand why the Canadian Food Inspection Agency won’t allow beef from smaller provincially inspected packing plants to flow freely between provinces.
“It makes absolutely no sense to me because if I can eat it in Saskatchewan, if it’s fit for me to eat, it’s fit for a Manitoba resident to eat.”
Hardy said the CFIA regulations prevent smaller processors from servicing companies like McDonalds, which operate nationally.
Changing those regulations would allow smaller packing plants to expand and help to clear up the glut of cull cows and bulls that is driving down cattle prices in Canada.
“I can think of no reason in the world why (the CFIA) wouldn’t do it. They can think of 100 I’m sure, but not one of them would be valid. If I can eat it, you can eat it in Manitoba and Alberta.”
Hardy said any hope for change likely rests on the shoulders of Ottawa’s politicians, not its bureaucrats, so that’s where the association will focus its lobbying efforts.
