SMITHERS, B.C. – Cattle officials hope there will be a signal within the next two weeks that the American border will reopen to all Canadian cattle by September.
If there is no response from the Americans, the reopening will likely be delayed to January, John Masswohl told the British Columbia Cattlemen’s Association annual meeting May 25.
“The question is will they move in September or January? We’re going to get a pretty good clue in the next couple weeks,” said Masswohl, director of government and international relations with the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association.
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Masswohl said he checks the U.S. government’s Office of Management and Budget website every day looking for notification that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has forwarded Rule 2.
“If we’re going to get these cattle moving in September, they’ve got to get that rule published in July, which means they’ve got to get it to OMB in the next week or two.”
Once Rule 2, which is USDA’s proposal to open the border to Canadian beef and cattle older than 30 months, is moved to the budget office, a 90-day time limit will begin.
Masswohl believes the budget office will take three to four weeks to examine the rule before sending it back to the USDA. Then it can be published in the federal register and come into effect 60 days later.
During the processing of Rule 1, the USDA’s proposal to reopen the American border to cattle younger than 30 months, more than 3,400 comments flooded the department. It took more than seven months to write a response to each concern. There were only 400 comments about Rule 2.
“It speaks a lot to the state of angst in the countryside over this rule. There’s not as much attention to that,” Masswohl said.
He said American government officials are aware of the busy October to December period when thousands of cull cattle go to market. Opening the border then would likely force prices down and stir the ire of American cattle producers.
“I know they want to do it in a time frame that’s going to have the least amount of disruption on the U.S. marketplace. They are aware of the importance of the fall culling season and I’m pretty sure they don’t want those cattle moving in October, November, December.”
Another important step to normalized trade was the recent granting of BSE controlled-risk status to Canada and the United States by the world animal health body known as the OIE. That good news and a resumption of trade talks between the United States and Korea and Japan plays well for Canada, Masswohl said.
“The more U.S. cattle producers have angst removed from them about their export opportunities, there is a softening of the opposition to this Rule 2 going through.”
The one trouble spot is the American cattle organization, R-CALF, which could delay the process with a lawsuit. Masswohl said the CCA has tried to defuse R-CALF’s vitriol with an advocacy campaign at state cattle meetings.
The CCA showed Americans figures proving there isn’t a wall of cattle waiting to flood across the border. The Canadians also talked about the effectiveness of the BSE surveillance system.
