If the municipality of Stuartburn, Man., has its way, there will be no Manitoba licence plates in parking lots of North Dakota shopping malls this summer.
The Stuartburn council has passed a resolution asking Manitobans to stop shopping in the state until the American border opens to live Canadian cattle exports.
The resolution was moved by two cattle producers sitting on council, said Stuartburn reeve Walter Happychuk.
“What the guys were infuriated with is (North Dakota senator Byron) Dorgan’s lobbying against removing the ban.”
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Dorgan issued a News release
news April 28, applauding a federal court injunction against the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s plan to open the border to bone-in and ground beef imports.
“This is no time to give consumers any reason to doubt the safety of their food by opening the border to Canadian beef products that would reach us through a system that is still struggling to overcome problems that allowed a cow with mad cow disease to be slaughtered and its meat to enter the supply chain,” he said.
Stuartburn is home to about 160 cow-calf producers who are struggling with cattle prices that have been cut in half. A significant portion of their calves used to be sold south of the border.
“We’re closer to Iowa and Nebraska than we are to Alberta in terms of the feeding industry,” said Happychuk.
Other businesses are also suffering. Henry Penner, president of the Grunthal Livestock Auction Mart, said the business used to sell 200-300 cows and bulls every Tuesday.
“Now we’re selling 25-30 cows.”
Feeder cattle are faring slightly better but sales are still down 50 percent from pre-BSE levels.
Penner said Dorgan is opposed to reopening the border because his state has no packing plant that would benefit from processing Canadian cattle. The cattle from Grunthal used to go to Minnesota and Wisconsin.
“The only thing we use of North Dakota’s is the highway to get to the packing plants.”
Happychuk called the resolution a “tongue-in-cheek” measure to raise awareness that trade is a two-way street.
