The semi-annual meeting of the Canada Beef Export Federation was winding down March 17 when chair Gib Drury urged someone in the audience to move a motion of thanks for agriculture minister Gerry Ritz.
It was quickly done.
An e-mail was sent that day thanking the minister for his market access promotion “and telling him he’s on the right track,” said Drury.
During a week of meetings, it was one of many examples of the close alliance the industry says it has formed with the government.
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Even as these exporters had been gathering in an Ottawa hotel to talk about problems and opportunities in their business, Ritz was boarding a plane for a quick trip to South Korea, one of the countries that continues to bar Canadian beef almost six years after the first BSE discovery.
Officially, CBEF says its goal is to get back into the Korean market with sales of close to $100 million by 2015. They need the government to pry the trade door open and Ritz has taken up the challenge with a vengeance.
He has been using every parliamentary break to travel the world, trying to win agreements that will expand Canadian agricultural trade opportunities.
And cattle industry leaders made clear last week they appreciate it, buying into his argument that trade and market returns rather than program payments are the way to get the industry back on its feet.
“We have a new opportunity,” Drury told the meeting. “Canada has adopted a new approach to trade policy and the industry-government relationship has finally gelled into a solid co-operative partnership.”
The new trade policy is “an end to Canada’s ‘all or nothing’ stance,” he said. “Now, we negotiate for incremental, commercially viable access.”
And the cattle lobby is applauding Ritz’s decision to set up a market access secretariat inside Agriculture Canada.
Delegates repeatedly referred to him as “a minister who listens.”
But it wasn’t just the minister in line for industry praise.
Geoff Adams, a technical barriers to trade specialist from the foreign affairs and international trade department, told the trade committee of the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association that reopening BSE-closed borders has received “unprecedented” attention inside government as trade negotiators, ambassadors, senior bureaucrats, foreign embassy staff and ministers never miss an opportunity to lobby for trade access.
“Not a week goes by without formal presentations or conversations taking place in several countries,” he said. “Canadian efforts on this file are unprecedented, global and ongoing at every level.”
CCA members praised the department’s efforts.
“Market access cannot come fast enough,” said committee chair Travis Toews. “We want you to know we appreciate your work.”
