VARNA, Ont. – Federal agriculture minister Ralph Goodale took heat last week for the government decision to allow as much as 5,000 tonnes of subsidized European beef into Canada.
At almost every stop during a two-day tour of rural southwestern Ontario ridings, beef farmers complained subsidized beef should not be allowed into the country.
Even though they agreed with Goodale that the amount is too little to affect the Canadian market, they blasted the government over the principle.
“We don’t like subsidized beef coming in here,” Huron County beef producer Jack Flanagan told Goodale during a meeting here Aug. 21. “It should be illegal.”
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Goodale defended the decision. He said the amount is too small to matter, he will not allow more than 5,000 tonnes in and the decision to lift a decade-old countervailing duty on European Union beef was made by the Canadian International Trade Tribunal rather than the government.
“It is a quasi-judicial body that decides this, not the government,” said the minister.
He also suggested he opposes the European product in Canada. “I don’t like this subsidized product any more than you do.”
At a later meeting, Goodale told another beef producer: “I know it is a gross aggravation to a lot of people, including me.”
That did not satisfy Flanagan. “It’s the principle of the thing,” he said later. “Subsidized beef should not be in our market when we’re not subsidized.”
It did not satisfy Canadian Cattlemen’s Association president Dave Andrews either. And he did not accept Goodale’s effort to distance his government from the decision.
From his Brooks, Alta. ranch, Andrews said the Liberal government cannot wash its hands of responsibility by blaming the CITT which decided in July to lift the countervail duty after being told the EU will limit exports to 5,000 tonnes.
He said the CITT was influenced by a government move last autumn to negotiate a trade deal with the EU which allows 5,000 tonnes of subsidized beef imports, so long as the CITT could be persuaded to lift the duty.
Breaking promise
Andrews said the agreement appears to violate Goodale’s longstanding commitment that he will not trade one commodity off against another, since the beef access for Europe was accompanied by a European agreement to allow more Canadian grain into its market.
“I think this is a betrayal of our interests and the minister knows exactly where we stand,” said the CCA president. “There is no use of me talking to him any more about this. I won’t forget it either.”
Goodale insisted the government trade deal with Europe is not the reason European beef will be allowed into Canada if they can find a buyer and if the meat meets Canadian health and safety standards.
“The duty was lifted because the CITT decided the 5,000 was too small an amount to affect our market,” he said. “That is how the system works.”
