Rogers Sugar executives are on Parliament Hill this week warning that American proposals to restrict market access for a sugar beet product could close the company’s sugar refinery in Taber, Alta.
And that, say representatives and defenders of the sugar beet industry, would be a bitter blow for southern Alberta.
“These proposed changes would have a devastating effect on Canada’s only sugar beet processing plant located in Taber, as well as to the sugar beet farmers themselves who rely on a continued operation,” said Alberta Liberal senator and Senate agriculture committee chair Joyce Fairbairn.
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Bruce Webster, Taber-based general manager of Alberta Sugar Beet Growers, told senators at an Oct. 19 hearing that restricted access to the American market for sugar beet thick juice manufactured in Taber would throw the plant into jeopardy.
He said officials from the company that operates plants in Vancouver and Taber “have said that a continued degradation of the markets for sugar made in Western Canada would result in having them consider closing one of their two facilities.”
Rogers executives will be before the committee this week. Senators expect them to confirm that point.
At issue is a United States proposal that imports of sugar beet thick juice, an intermediate product that can be refined into sugar, be subject to import controls that protect the American sugar cane industry from competition. For the past decade, while there have been tight restrictions on imports of Canadian refined sugar, thick juice has been subject to no controls and no duties.
The U.S. is proposing to restrict volumes of juice, which last year totalled 36,000 tonnes worth $12.5 million US. That was the equivalent of 23,000 tonnes of sugar while the quota for refined sugar is just 10,300 tonnes.
“Exports of thick juice from the plant in Taber help maintain the viability of the sugar beet industry in Alberta,” said Tom Oommen, acting director of multilateral trade access for Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada.
He said keeping Canada’s access, granted under 1995 World Trade Organization rules, is a priority.
Webster said the proposed import restrictions are the result of American mid-term elections and the political debate that surrounds it.
“I think it is because of the elections in November,” he said. “The political action committees of the sugar industry in the United States donate millions of dollars to candidates.”
At a House of Commons agriculture meeting Oct. 18, U.S. embassy agriculture counsellor Gary Groves said he knew little about the protection proposals but that it is within American trade rules rights. He said a reduction in protection will happen only under a new international trade deal.
“That (sugar) is one of our most sensitive products,” Groves said.
