WHEN prime minister Jean Chrétien used an overseas trip last week to complain about the $500 billion US deficit being run up this year by U.S. president George Bush, many people in the beleaguered Canadian cattle industry exploded.
True, if Canada was running a $75 billion deficit, Canadian conservative and business forces would be in full voice against him. But it is running surpluses and rubbing the American nose in it. George Bush is funding tax cuts on the taxpaying backs of his grandchildren.
Ah ha! It is anti-American jibes like that from prominent Canadian politicians that keep the U.S. border closed to Canadian cattle, critics complained. In many prairie settings, Chrétien became a four-letter word for trouble.
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“The biggest factor right now in the situation is our prime minister,” said Roger Roberge of Roberge Transport in Alberta, Canada’s largest livestock transporting company. “If it wasn’t for his comments, the border may not have been closed.”
In Parliament, Canadian Alliance MPs complained that instead of lobbying to get the border open, Chrétien was “poking a stick in the eye” of the Americans.
The implication was that the U.S. border closing to Canadian beef was a political decision. It is an amazing assertion from people who normally spend their time extolling the Americans as paragons of virtue when it comes to trade.
The Americans base their decisions on science as they should, goes the argument. It is those dastardly Europeans who clutter up their trade policy with political considerations.
Well, let’s utter a word of defence for American trade policy. The border was not closed because the Americans are angry that Canada did not invade Iraq with them and has criticized American policies.
The border was closed because a case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy was discovered in Canada. The border would be closed by Canada if a similar incident was reported in the U.S.
This is an issue where science should, and is, ruling. To suggest the Americans have closed the border in a political gesture against Canada is to look for a scapegoat – the Chrétien Liberals are always a good target on the Prairies – and to question American motives.
But let’s move on. Assume the Canadian Food Inspection Agency announces this week or next that there is proof positive this was an isolated incident and Canadian beef is safe.
Will the border open?
“Our relationship with the U.S. is certainly a good one and as long as we do a good science-based job here, we expect that those borders will open up again,” Robert Carberry of the CFIA said last week.
That may be a bit optimistic because politics does play a role in many American trade decisions.
But if Canada scientifically proves its case and the border remains closed, will that properly be blamed on a Canadian government that made decisions the White House didn’t like?
Or will it be more properly assigned to the politicization of American trade policy and decisions? That could mean referring to American beef blockers in the same breath as those European Union GMO blockers. Ouch.
