Some things you let slide.
And some things you just can’t let slip by.
When it comes to the safety and quality of Canada’s food products and system, there is no way Canada should allow the United Kingdom to play sleazy games with access to the British market if it wants to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.
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Our federal government needs to do a lot more to stand up for our farmers’ and processors’ reputations, which are libelled by the U.K.’s behaviour and unanswered slurs by U.K. farm groups and media.
“While the U.K.’s meat industry could boom from membership in the CPTPP, Canada’s meat processing safety is not of a high enough standard for Britain to allow imports,” ran a lazily inaccurate line in England’s Express newspaper Sept. 14 about the campaign by Canada’s meat and cattle industries to block the U.K. from the deal until it opens its borders.
The U.K. has refused to accept Canada’s world-leading food industry standards, so most Canadian meat can’t be exported to the U.K. Meanwhile, much beef from the U.K. — birthplace of the massive BSE outbreak in the 1980s and 1990s — has arrived in Canada.
There is no way the U.K. should be allowed into the CPTPP without giving up these non-tariff barriers. If it wants into this world-standard, free-trading club, it’s going to have to, as Canadian Cattle Association president Nathan Phinney said at the recent Canada-Europe agricultural summit, give up on trade-blocking hypocrisy.
“If we’re going to talk the talk, then we got to walk the walk. If we’re going to say everything is science-based or research-based, then those are the standards we need to hold to,” said Phinney.
Exactly.
It seems obvious.
However, for whatever reasons, our federal government hasn’t taken a strong stand on this issue and appears to be just letting it slide.
“We understand the Canadian meat sector is concerned with their ability to ship Canadian products to the U.K. under present market conditions,” says an official Agriculture Canada response to a query from Western Producer reporter Karen Briere following the summit.
“Bringing an ally like the U.K. into this important Pacific agreement does not mean Canada has stepped back from its trade rights. The Government of Canada continues to engage in bilateral discussions with the U.K. to undertake technical work to facilitate market access.”
Well, that’s not exactly holding the U.K.’s feet to the fire, is it?
Discussions? How about writing them a strongly worded letter?
I have no idea why the feds are being so weak on this. Letting the U.K. play the same dirty games the European Union has specialized in is not something any Canadian government should allow into the CPTPP.
This country’s farmers have suffered from decades of trade-blocking on our canola, flax, beef and pork from the EU, from which the U.K. recently departed, so we’re a bit wiser about the European proclivity for obstructionism than most of our CPTPP colleagues, but that’s why we need to be firmer on this.
If Canada lets the U.K. slip into the CPTPP with EU-like behaviours intact, it’s not just undermining Canada’s meat producers and exporters in terms of bilateral trade.
It’s letting the protectionist wolf inside the sheepfold of the world’s best shot at keeping rules-based free trade alive.
It’s awkward to say “no” to a mother country, but sometimes mum’s got to be told she’s out of line.
