OTTAWA – Canada’s sugar refiners have told the Canadian government that the industry could collapse if they do not receive protection from under-priced imports.
The Canadian Sugar Institute, which represents Rogers Sugar plants in Winnipeg and Taber, Alta. among its members, told a recent hearing of the Canadian International Trade Tribunal that subsidized import competition is killing the industry.
At stake are 1,400 direct jobs in six plants across the country, as well as the 750 sugar beet farms that supply Rogers plants in Alberta and Manitoba.
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“If our industry does not prevail in these proceedings, the outlook is bleak,” Institute president Sandra Marsden told the CITT in a submission.
Her position is being opposed by sugar importers, who now supply 15 percent of the Canadian market.
Higher duties requested
Canadian refiners are asking for duties to raise the price of imports from the United States, the European Union and Korea to Canadian levels.
To get that, they must convince the CITT that subsidized imports are damaging Canadian industry profitability.
Last week, Revenue Canada confirmed its earlier ruling that sugar imports into Canada are being dumped at prices lower than costs in the country of origin.
However, that ruling does not automatically lead to protection for the Canadian industry.
Request denied
In 1983, Revenue Canada issued a similar dumping judgment but the CITT refused a request for duty protection, concluding the U.S. subsidy program which caused most of the dumping likely would not continue.
A decade later, it is still there and imports from the U.S. during the first half of 1995 increased 30 percent to 74,001 tonnes, said Marsden.
She said the Canadian industry has faced the competition in the past by cutting costs, laying off workers, closing plants and seeking export markets.
Now, further cost savings are not possible and an expanded export program is unlikely because of import restrictions imposed by other countries.
“We view our future prospects with trepidation,” she told CITT members. “If not curtailed, the growth in dumped and subsidized imports will increasingly compromise our producers’ profitability and threaten the viability of the Canadian refined sugar industry.”
A CITT decision is expected by early November.
