The United States confirmed last week it is backing away, at least for now, on a proposal to allow Canadian meat from cattle older than 30 months across the border beginning March 7.
However, new U.S. agriculture secretary Mike Johanns told a visiting Canadian political and industry delegation that the administration remains committed to opening the border for live imports younger than 30 months in less than three weeks.
He also said the department will consider a later rule governing import of older animals and meat from older animals.
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“The March deadline is still there and we’re working our way toward that deadline,” Johanns told reporters in Washington Feb. 9 after meeting with Canadian agriculture minister Andy Mitchell, who led a delegation of six provincial ministers and Conservative critic Diane Finley on a two-day lobbying blitz.
Mitchell later told reporters he was disappointed that the older meat proposal had been withdrawn from the USDA rule but happy that the government remains committed to the March 7 border opening for young cattle.
“This represents roughly 90 percent of our trade.”
In the House of Commons Feb. 11, Manitoba cattle producer and Conservative MP James Bezan took a more critical view of Mitchell’s first meeting with Johanns. He said withdrawal of the proposal to allow meat from older animals was a setback.
“The agriculture minister is back from his BSE mission to the U.S. but it appears he came back with half the deal he went there with,” said Bezan. “I am glad the minister came home when he did or we might have lost the entire deal.”
Meanwhile, despite Mitchell’s optimism, some members of the delegation to Washington said they found significant opposition or skepticism in Congress to border opening.
Nine senators have introduced a motion to keep the border closed, although it would require support of both Senate and House of Representatives as well as president George Bush.
Democratic senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota also suggested last week that the U.S. Department of Agriculture failed to notify the Senate of its trade regulation, despite being required by law to do so.
Conrad said the procedural misstep by the Bush administration may require a delay in its plan to resume imports of some beef and cattle from Canada.
An attempt by R-CALF to have a court set aside the border opening will also be heard in Montana days before the scheduled border opening.
Saskatchewan agriculture minister Mark Wartman said Feb. 11 he was still optimistic the border will open on March 7 but he added that political opposition in the U.S. is worrisome.
“I’m hopeful that the border will open as announced but there certainly are unknowns and when it opens, we’ll believe it,” Wartman said.
“When we met with congressmen and senators, we certainly ran into skepticisms and myths that we tried to deal with, like the alleged wall of cattle and the operation of our feed ban.”
British Columbia minister John van Dongen said the delegation met both skeptics and promoters of border opening. Some worried that prices their rancher constituents receive will fall “and they wondered why it is in their interest to open the border. Congressional support cannot be taken for granted. We really are in a wait-and-see situation.”
Alberta minister Doug Horner, in a conference call with reporters from Washington, said he mainly found supporters for a border opening and he predicted a court decision favourable to Canada. “I’ve been told by others outside government that they feel optimistic that the court cases will go in favour of open trade.”
Meanwhile, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency announced last week that the Canadian cow diagnosed with BSE Jan. 11 may have picked up the disease from infected feed manufactured after the 1997 feed ban.
“However, exact production dates for the feeds under investigation are unavailable.”
The agency said the investigation on the case is complete and all other animals from the herd born within a year of the infected animal’s 1998 birth were tested and found BSE-free.
The possibility that feed containing specified risk materials was manufactured after SRMs were banned from ruminant feed in 1997 raises a question about the effectiveness of the feed ban, an issue now being investigated by the CFIA under the watchful eyes of American officials.
The agency also noted that public comment period on its proposal to ban SRMs from all animal feed ends Feb. 24.
