Negotiations with Chinese officials have failed to open the door for Canadian canola imports. Canadian Food Inspection Agency officials have packed their bags and left China after discussions with their counterparts resolved nothing and there didn’t seem much point staying on.
There are still Canadian embassy officials available to keep the issue alive, but that won’t likely bring much of a resolution.
The biggest hope being held by the Canadian canola industry is that Canada’s biggest political gun can ride into Beijing and stare down these dastardly market rustlers.
Stephen Harper, our prime minister, is heading for China in early December for a visit, and canola officials are asking him to raise the canola blockage issue with Chinese leaders when he’s there. Right now the Chinese food officials seem to have dug their feet in about canola from Canada, but in a communist country like China a political leader can have a change of heart and instantly policy will change and the little officials at the bottom will swing around like a well-whacked pinata.
On Friday I spoke to the China Canada Business Council about whether it’s a good or bad idea to involve politicians in disputes with China. I wondered whether bringing in the big guns would just alienate the Chinese, or if it would flatter and delight them to have our leaders begging for relief from them and lead to a quick resolution.
Read Also
Worrisome drop in grain prices
Prices had been softening for most of the previous month, but heading into the Labour Day long weekend, the price drops were startling.
The man at the council told me that decades of experience of working with the Chinese during disputes showed that it helped to have big names involved, but that everyone should be nice and polite. The Chinese aren’t easy to bluster, bully or intimidate, but an irritant brought constantly to their attention is likely to be salved somehow.
So it’d probably make sense for Harper to raise this problem, but to keep his gun in his holster and not make too many threats about WTO action or anything like that.
It likely won’t be enough just to have Harper attempt a big boys deal with China on this. It’ll require CFIA officials, embassy officials, and all sorts of other Canadians to keep the issue alive and not just let the ban become permanent policy. The man at the China Canada Business Council said that the canola industry should use all of their contacts in Canada and China to continually raise the issue. He pointed out that hundreds of Canadian companies do business in China and that provides a huge network of contacts that can be influenced.
When this controversy broke a few weeks ago, I immediately thought of calling Ed Tyrchniewicz, the longtime agricultural dean, professor, analyst, consultant, government commission chair. A couple of years ago he organized a conference in China at the behest of Chinese government and university officials that was focused on connecting China’s agribusiness sector with that of the rest of the world. I thought if anyone could give me insight into how the Chinese think, what would be motivating them and how best to deal with them, it’d be him.
I was right, because when I tried to call him at his office at the University of Manitoba I was told he had just left for a trip to China. I might be able to track him down en route. So after a flurry of calls we finally connected while he was waiting in the departure lounge in the Vancouver airport, he talking through a Skype connection on his computer and me holding a cellphone in one hand and a dripping coffee cup in the other hand while I walked through the downtown Winnipeg concourse.
He was off to a Chinese agri-trade show and was going to be talking to Chinese livestock feeders about better using canola meal, which they now commonly mix with rapeseed meal, lowering its value. Although his visit had nothing to do with the blackleg imbroglio, he was going to talk about it with his Chinese contacts and make sure they knew that it was a possible problem for them if they wanted to be able to obtain canola meal this winter.
So while our attention will be on Harper, hundreds of quieter conversations will be going on across China this winter between Canadian and Chinese ag-trade people this winter, and if Harper fails to gain a quick resolution we can hope that the attention he’s able to bring to the problem allows that quiet buzz of chatter between the Chinese and people like Tyrchniewicz to be heard on high. Eventually.
