Close the ports

[kato]

Today I spoke with a man who is "on the inside", so to speak, who said that he had been told the only reason Japanese beef is not here is that no one from Japan had asked to have the border open. We only ever did import a small amount of Kobe beef any way. Apparently the feeling was that if they had asked, they would very likely have been allowed to ship it here. They just didn't ask.

[Junebug]

I attended a local BSE informative meeting a couple of days ago. There was representation there from the provincial govern., federal govern., Alberta Cattle Commision, a federal vet etc.
The comment made was "I have never seen Ralph Cline so frustrated as he was on Tuesday as he desperately tried to get some answers as to what we have to do to get that border open." No one would come up with any thing.
They mentioned that the Japanese wanted to import to Canada 5 kgs. of beef last year and 250 kgs. of beef in 2001 and Canada would not allow it. Canada would not allow the Japanese to be apart of the investagating team that worked on our single case of BSE. So do you think it may be a case of "PAY BACK" time. Both government officials said this problem is now 100 % political, science is not being considered now, and that there are issues with ottawa and Washington (surprise,surprise) All in all a very good informative meeting however the bottom line was "Don't expect these borders to be openned any time soon"

[rusty1]

I found the best claification on this who BSE issue - it's a must read. Finally something that makes sence @ http://www.leiss.ca/chronicles/125
William Leiss is a prof at the U of Calgary.

[ValueChainFX]

I do believe Ralph Kline is truly frustrated with his attempts to open the boarders. He is finding out that we have built a system that is slow, cumbersome and full of little dictators that stifle growth and prevent change.

Yes the government is to blame for much of the challenge we are in today, but so are the many so called structures we have let gradually bog down our agriculture industry. Our industry representatives have been less than effective in monies geared to enhance the agriculture industry and have created many new forms of red tape and dependency on our academic paper shufflers.

If we want to make agriculture in Canada work we need to work together and play on the same field. We can’t keep pumping money into programs that have no real direct benefit to the front line agriculture community. It’s time that we looked at the farms and ranches in Canada and work towards making them more sustainable. Research, incubators, marketing plans and studies are fine if they have a direct impact on a balanced supply chain. But to leave your front line producers out of this mix is nothing short of ludicrous.

I hope Ralph is able to cut through some of this Bull and in true Mr. Klein fashion come up with a real solution that has real impact. The only way he will accomplish this is to cut through what I am sure is a lot of misinformation he is getting from some of his front line dictators!

[rsomer]

ValueChainFX:

If you remember, Ralph Kline personally came out in support of the Iraq war. This no doubt earned him support of the present U.S. administration even if his position did not have the support of the Alberta PC caucus, certainly no support from the federal government. Ralph made his trip to see Dick Cheney but the border remained closed. Alberta is fortunate that it can ship gas to the U.S. and provide what support has been given to the beef industry with the resulting royalty revenues. However, the real solutions will come from Ottawa, not Alberta.

Junebug: I think it is entirely right that Japanese beef was denied access into Canada. To do so would have jeopardized our trade with the United States. There were international agreements in place that Canada was party to designed to keep North American BSE free. Now that one of the NAFTA trading partners is no longer BSE free the rules need to be rewritten. I am sure that is what is happening now even if we don't hear about it in the press. I see the number one issue is whether Canada will be forced to undertake costly safety measures that affect our competitiveness in order to ensure our product is "safe" and approved for export to our NAFTA partners while the other NAFTA partners may not be required to do the same in order to export beef to Canada. We have already unilaterally agreed to remove Specified Risk Materials (SRM) from our beef but that did not open the border. Frankly, Canada is not in a real good negotiating position right now.

Re the borders not being opened any time soon, Bush is up for re-election in November of 2004. I can't imagine the present U.S. administration wants BSE to be an election issue, they are having enough trouble with COOL. Certainly I see no solution until after Jean Cretien is replaced as leader in Canada, but a solution cannot be too long in coming after that or else BSE becomes an election issue in the U.S. February 2004 seems a likely time. If the border remains closed after February-March 2004 it will remain closed until after the U.S. election because the American cattleman is just having too much fun right now with high beef prices and won't want to vote for those that ended the party. My opinion.

[Muttley]

A lot of Canadians make their living from Japanese or other countries products.

Shutting them down will only hurt Canadians involved.