The Alberta sugar beet industry could be a casualty if Parliament endorses legislation to enact a Canada-Colombia free trade deal, says a Canadian sugar industry lobbyist.
Sandra Marsden, president of the Canadian Sugar Institute, told MPs Oct. 27 the proposed deal would allow low-cost sugar producer Colombia to ship more product to Canada.
The Canadian industry, geared to serving the domestic market, has low protectionist measures compared to other countries and few export opportunities because of foreign market protectionism, she said.
The most likely victim of increased cheap sugar would be Rogers Sugar operations in Western Canada, said Marsden. It has an under-capacity sugar cane refining plant in Vancouver and a sugar beet refinery in Taber, Alta. that also operates below capacity.
“One of those plants would be at risk,” she told MPs on the House of Commons international trade committee.
While the chief lobbyist for the Canadian refined sugar industry said she would not presume to guess what decision Rogers management would make, the clear implication was that the Taber plant and the 250 sugar beet producers who depend on it would be most at risk.
Marsden noted that a United States Farm Bill provision cut off a significant market for thick beet juice, hurting the Taber plant bottom line.
She said that as a member of the Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance, the sugar industry supports freer trade.
But the history of bilateral or regional free trade deals is that the Canadian industry typically loses. It supports a World Trade Organization deal.
“We like to embrace free trade but in this case, we are in a defensive position,” she told MPs.
Beside her sat Greg Simpson from Saskatchewan-based Simpson Seeds Inc. who told MPs he embraces the proposed deal because it would increase trade to a market that already takes 57,000 tonnes tonnes of Canadian pulse crops, worth more than $50 million annually.
Simpson said if Canada does not embrace a free trade deal with Colombia before the United States does, it will jeopardize the Canadian share of the Colombian market.
