Three of Canada’s largest cheese makers are taking court action against new regulations that require more raw milk in cheese manufacturing.
The regulations, announced last year by agriculture minister Gerry Ritz as a way to increase dairy producer income by $185.6 million a year, took effect in mid-December.
On March 31, lawyers for Kraft Canada Inc., Parmalat Canada Inc. and Saputo Inc. will be in Federal Court to argue that the regulations are illegal, unenforceable, discriminatory and wrong-headed.
In a brief filed with the court, the three companies say the requirement will cost Canada’s dairy processors $165 million in lost cheese sales, at least $71 million in higher ingredient costs, and other costs in record keeping to prove they are meeting the rules.
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They argue that the regulations are vague and unenforceable and that imported cheese will not be subjected to the same surveillance by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
The new regulations were applauded by the Dairy Farmers of Canada. They are aimed at reversing the increasing use of cheaper imported dairy protein products to replace raw milk in domestic cheese manufacturing.
Yvan Loubier, a Quebec City communications consultant who represents the cheese companies, said under the regulations they will be less able to produce lower-fat cheeses that are recommended by health advocates.
“They will be making cheese with more fat content and that goes against what people say is a healthier diet.”
Loubier is an economist who worked in the 1980s for Agriculture Canada, became chief economist for Quebec’s powerful pro-dairy farmer lobby l’Union des Producteurs Agricoles and then spent more than a decade as a Bloc Québécois MP, rarely failing to castigate the Liberals for not being strong enough defenders of dairy farmer interests.
Loubier said he does not see a conflict between his past as a dairy farmer advocate and his present as a representative of the dairy processors trying to kill regulations that are aimed at increasing dairy farmer income.
“I took this assignment because I believe these regulations are bad for dairy producers,” he said.
“They sell $2 billion worth of raw milk to processors each year and if processors are in a bad situation and their sales are falling because of higher prices and costs, they will not be buying as much raw milk. They say this is to increase income to producers, but I really think it will do the opposite.”
In their court arguments, cheese makers say the federal regulations are illegal partly because they are not based on health, safety or quality issues but on a goal of “economic transfer” to producers, “a matter within the exclusive legislative competence of the provinces.”
