OTTAWA – Canada’s home-grown pasta industry is launching a concerted lobby on Parliament Hill to gain government protection from subsidized European imports.
At stake, says an Ottawa-based representative, are jobs in Canadian plants and the 175,000 tonnes of durum wheat they buy each year from Canadian farmers.
“Without corrective action, the Canadian pasta manufacturing industry will continue to reduce its purchases of semolina and durum wheat from domestic millers and wheat producers,” says a brief recently circulated on Parliament Hill.
“This is an issue that requires some government leadership,” said Don Jarvis, an Ottawa lobbyist representing the Canadian Pasta Manufacturers Association.
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At the core of the issue is a dispute between importers and domestic manufacturers, with 2,000 employees and plants in Toronto, Montreal, Lethbridge and several other cities.
A Canadian Wheat Board regulation prohibits the import of pasta from off-shore except in small retail packages.
The manufacturers are claiming that bulk pasta products from Italy are being brought into the country by wholesalers “illegally” and sold to large retail chains. They say the Canadian Wheat Board is ignoring it.
The result has been an explosion of Italian pasta in the Canadian market. Imports have more than doubled since 1988 and Italian products now claim 12 percent of the Canadian market.
Canadian manufacturers claim the European product is subsidized and possibly being dumped (sold below manufacturing cost) into Canada.
Prices remain steady
Despite distance from market, the Italian products are the price-setters in Canada and retail prices have remained steady, even as durum prices have more than doubled from $140 per tonne in 1991 to $330 per tonne this year.
The share of the Canadian market held by domestic manufacturers has fallen from more than 80 percent to 60 percent.
Most of the imports originate from the United States and are protected under the North American free trade deal. European imports are the target of the lobby.
Representatives of the four Canadian companies – Borden Catelli, Italpasta Ltd., Primo Foods Ltd. and Grisspasta Products Ltd. – will begin lobbying next month. They want the government to order the Canadian Wheat Board to enforce the existing restriction.
