When federal agriculture minister Andy Mitchell meets with leaders of Canada’s hog industry this week to discuss a reaction strategy to the American imposition of a duty of 14.06 percent on Canadian hog imports, he will receive some straightforward advice.
The industry does not want government talk of financial help to offset the potential annual hurt of $60 million.
“We don’t want to convey the notion that there might be some money triggered for the industry because of this,” Canadian Pork Council executive director Martin Rice said in an Oct. 27 interview. “If the government moved to offset the antidump, that would be countervailable and that would add to our problems.”
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In fact, Rice said he even doubts if the loss of income because of the duty hit will make Canadian hog producers eligible for payments under the Canadian Agricultural Income Stabilization program, since the program payout trigger is based on an historic average margin level.
“My guess is that incomes this year will be above those historic actions so I wouldn’t expect a CAIS trigger.”
Instead of money, Rice said the hog industry really needs government support to lobby the Americans to convince them that the countervail calculation method was flawed and the duty application wrongheaded.
Mitchell said that he made those arguments to U.S. ambassador Paul Cellucci during an Oct. 28 meeting in Ottawa and will be aggressively lobbying in Washington to have the hog duty overturned.
The minister said an analysis of the potential impact of the duty also has been ordered by federal and provincial agriculture ministers and once the results are in, the two levels of government and the industry will meet to plan a response strategy.
“One of the key points is that while this is bad for Canada, it also is bad for the United States, and we will be vigorously making that argument in the U.S.,” Mitchell said.
