The science is in on the BSE file, and it affirms to the extent possible that Canada’s cattle and beef industry has been brought to its knees by one Alberta cow infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy.
Let the international politics begin.
“It is clear what we have encountered is not an epidemic of BSE,” Canadian Food Inspection Agency acting vice-president Robert Carberry told a parliamentary committee June 30.
The evidence from the CFIA and an international experts’ panel has been sent to the United States and other markets for Canadian and American beef.
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“The science is very clear,” agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief told reporters June 27. “No one is quarrelling at all to my knowledge with the science… and so on that basis, we will be working as thoroughly on every front that we can to resume trade.”
For the moment, it appears science will not be enough.
“This isn’t based on science anymore, in my humble opinion,” Ontario Liberal Rose-Marie Ur said June 30. “Science seems like just a fraction of what is involved.”
This week, chief CFIA veterinarian Brian Evans is in Japan and South Korea, trying to convince them that the process has proven Canadian beef to be safe.
Japan has given the U.S. until Sept. 1 to guarantee that no Canadian beef is mixed with American product. If the U.S. can’t, Japan won’t buy its beef. The U.S. does not have a product segregation system.
Japan is the largest customer for U.S. beef. Canadian ministers and industry leaders are accusing Japan of being protectionist by exceeding international rules for meat safety.
In the U.S., some American cattle lobbyists are urging that the border remain closed because of the Japanese threat. Grudgingly, it is leading some Canadians to suggest that the Americans are beginning to move beyond their oft-stated respect for science-based decisions into the less predictable world of politics. Keeping the border closed to preserve the Japanese market for American beef is not a science-based decision.
“That is undeniable,” Canadian Cattlemen’s Association assistant manager Rob McNabb said in a June 27 interview.
“The reality is that Japan represents a much more important market for them than we do. It is not rocket science to say they want to preserve that.”
On June 26, after two days of lobbying in Washington, Canadian Wheat Board minister Ralph Goodale said the Americans have slipped into politics on the border issue.
“In a sense they have. I mean they obviously have the worry about the domino effect or the repercussion effect.”
Last week, agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief was at a trade show in Sacramento, California, lobbying foreign ministers to accept scientific results that BSE in Canada was limited to a single case.
Trade department official Claudio Valle told the agriculture committee June 30 that Canada continues to push the scientific argument, sending the reports to foreign governments, organizing embassy lobbies and expecting them to respond.
“We are looking for a formal response (from the U.S.) to the science,” he said. “If that is not forthcoming, we will ratchet up the pressure in other areas.”
For Canadian Alliance MPs at the hearing, it was not good enough. They insisted prime minister Jean Chretien and other government leaders should be leading the campaign to get borders open.