Canada’s competition commissioner acknowledged there is frustration in post-BSE Canada over the gap between prices beef producers receive and prices paid by consumers, but she insisted the Competition Bureau is not the place to deal with it.
“On the basis of the information available to date, I have no reason to believe that the competition act has or is about to be contravened,” commissioner Sheridan Scott told the House of Commons agriculture committee Feb. 16. “That being said, I would like to assure (MPs) that I continue to examine this important issue that is so critical to this committee, farmers and ranchers and Canadian consumers and I will not hesitate to take appropriate action if I uncover information which leads to a potential breach of the act.”
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Her refusal to launch an inquiry into packer pricing during the BSE crisis disappointed members of the agriculture committee. MPs have complained that when government announced producer support programs, packers dropped the price they were willing to pay for older cattle, effectively taking advantage of the taxpayer subsidy aimed at farmers.
Agriculture committee chair and Ontario Liberal MP Paul Steckle said the Feb. 16 hearing was the first of a series that will try to build a case against the packers.
“I think the packing industry has been engaged in undue profiteering, gouging, rape,” he said in an interview. “I think they have done all those things. I have used all those words and I think the committee is in a position to hold public hearings to get to the root of this.”
