Prime minister Paul Martin emerged from an eastern Ontario community meeting on rural economic development Feb. 13 vowing to keep fighting to reopen the American border to live cattle exports.
He told reporters that the BSE crisis was a major topic of discussion during the hour he spent with area residents gathered in Brockville, Ont.
“It is wreaking havoc on farmers and farm families and rural communities,” he said.
“We’ve just got to get that border open.”
Martin said he had discussed the issue “extensively” with U.S. president George Bush and would continue to exert pressure on the Americans.
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Many in the cattle industry and the Canadian political community believe the Americans will not consider opening the border to live younger cattle until after the November election.
Meanwhile, a British Columbia MP said last week BSE’s impact extends beyond the Prairies into west coast fishing communities.
Conservative MP John Cummins, the party’s fisheries critic, said B.C. fish plants that produce an artificial crab and shrimp product have lost international markets because they use beef plasma as a binding agent.
Hake fish are processed into a product called surimi, which is used to make the artificial crab and shrimp product.
“Foreign buyers are not interested in buying Canadian surimi at this time,” Cummins told the House of Commons.
“In Ucluelet on the west coast of Vancouver Island, the fish plant is closed down because they are unable to export, throwing 140 people out of work.”
Officials of Canadian Seafood Processors Ltd. were unavailable for comment last week.
In an interview, Cummins said the issue goes beyond that one plant.
“Many plants produce this product and even if they are still operating with other products, it is a real hit,” he said. “And it means fishermen who sell hake also have lost a market. They are the people I have been hearing from on this issue.”
Cummins said the government must recognize BSE’s broad impact.
“This is an important issue and not only for the agricultural industry,” he said in the Commons. “It also has implications elsewhere, including the fishing industry.”
