The mid-February announcement that Ottawa and the provinces are going to find ways to make it easier to trade meat products between provinces had a logical ring to it. As agriculture minister Gerry Ritz said, it shouldn’t be easier to sell product abroad than it is to sell to neighbouring provinces.
Nineteen pilot projects will be launched to find ways that allow meat plants that cannot now export to other provinces to do so.
“These projects will enhance processors’ ability to sell their safe high quality product to more Canadian consumers, in turn increasing market opportunities at the farmgate,” said the ministerial statement.
Read Also
Agriculture ministers agree to AgriStability changes
federal government proposed several months ago to increase the compensation rate from 80 to 90 per cent and double the maximum payment from $3 million to $6 million
What could be more sensible that that? Let’s do it yesterday!
If only it was that simple.
Canada is a country designed by committee with few national standards and many unique provincial rules.
The meat plants in question are provincially registered and regulated, and for one reason or another do not meet the federal standard that applies to packing plants authorized to sell across Canada and abroad.
Officials insist meat from those plants is as safe as product from federal plants but because of pernicious regulations, they are forced to sell only within their own province.
Ministers agreed at their recent Toronto meeting to try to create a third tier of packing plant rules – a “national” standard that would be more than provincial rules but less bureaucratic and onerous than federal rules.
Good luck with that. The idea of a national standard has been around for years and gone nowhere for some good reasons.
• Packing industry politics: The powerful Canadian Meat Council representing federally regulated plants opposes the idea, insisting there should be one standard in Canada, the one they must meet. Provinces have opposed that, arguing that requiring smaller plants to meet federal standards would drive many of them out of business.
• Credibility: If the argument is that federal rules impose unnecessary bureaucratic requirements on smaller plants that have nothing to do with meat safety, why are they there at all? Shouldn’t regulations for packing plants be aimed at making sure the product is safe and animals are treated humanely?
• Potential consumer reaction: Despite political assurances of product safety in both federal and provincial plants, consumers can be expected to wonder why Canadian meat being exported has to come from plants with more stringent standards than the meat they are eating.
• The law: As it stands, Canadian legislation is explicit in saying that interprovincial and international sales of meat must come from federally registered and regulated plants. If an attempt was made to amend the law to set a lower standard for domestic trade or to do it through regulatory change, there would be a political firestorm.
The goal to increase domestic markets for safe meat products from provincial plants is worthy, as it was in earlier failed attempts to change the rules.
Maybe the pilot projects will find some way around the conundrum that has not yet been tried.
