American group wins injunction to keep border closed to cattle

[FRENCHMAN]

American group wins injunction to keep border closed to cattle
Last Updated Mar 2 2005 01:13 PM CST
CBC News
BILLINGS, MONTANA – The American rancher lobby group R-CALF has won a preliminary injunction to keep the U.S. government from reopening the border to live Canadian cattle.

The judge, who said he would give his reasons Thursday, told the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, United Stockgrowers of America (R-CALF USA) they should apply for a permanent injunction.

R-CALF had argued that the border reopening – scheduled for Monday – would cause financial harm to U.S. producers, and that Canada doesn't properly test its animals for bovine spongiform encephalopathy.

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R-CALF succeeded last year in obtaining an injunction to halt a U.S. Department of Agriculture decision to allow additional cuts of meat from Canada, argued in front of the same judge.

The U.S. closed its border to Canadian beef and cattle in May 2003, after the first case of BSE in a Canadian-born animal was confirmed. It resumed the shipment of some cuts of beef that August.

And two months ago, the USDA announced that it would begin allowing live cattle under the age of 30 months across the border beginning March 7. The USDA said it recognized Canada as a "minimal-risk region" for BSE, in part because of measures taken to prevent the spread of the disease.

After the announcement, two more cases of BSE were confirmed in Alberta animals, but the USDA said it had expected to see other cases and they fell within the minimal risk definition. A Canadian-born dairy cow that had been shipped to the U.S. in 2001 tested positive for BSE in December 2003. That led to Japan halting imports of U.S. beef.

R-CALF will also argue that allowing Canadian cattle into the U.S. will impact American exports to foreign markets.

In its economic argument, R-CALF said if the border reopens, Canada will ship two million animals south in the first 12 months.

R-CALF says it will cost the American cattle industry – which was been reaping high prices for their animals since the border closed – up to $3 billion if it reopens.

Canadian officials say before the border closed in 2003, Canada shipped about 900,000 animals a year to the U.S. And with new rules imposed by the USDA regarding whether cattle will be allowed in, the animals will have to travel directly to slaughter, or to a feedlot on the way to slaughter

[kato]

Gee, I wonder if the result would be different if the judge wasn't in Montana?

[almoy]

When they apply for a permanent injuntion I wonder does the same judge hear the case. Since he advised R-Calf to apply for a permanent injunction then I imagine he would grant it !

[WoolyBear]

As long as groups like R-Calf can pick and bribe their own judges and slam the border closed like this I think that its time to Piss on the USA market and go about finishing the beef process here. Lets get our own house in perfect order, develop the products that our export and domestic markets want and get to it! Same goes for our lamb, goats, bison, elk, grain, oilseeds, lumber, farm machinery manufacturing etc........

Canadians can do it!....... we just need to have some confidence in ourselves, quit listening to the government experts (NOT) bankers and accountants that preach about globalization, "bigger is better" and that sort of retoric. Kick out the American "shareholders" and lets get down to business.

PS........ turn off the pipelines, and hydro sales. We can use this to run our own processing and manufacturing, and if there is anything left, then its world price.........and NOT the prefered pricing that the US is enjoying now.

Do I sound ticked? Yes, and its about time!!!!

[wd40]

MAD AS Heck!! I was at a meeting in Lethbridge with I'm sure over 300 people to find out about all the procedures to export fats and feeders.
What a crock.
However worse yet is the stupidity of us Canadians. How much a_s are we going to kiss to to export live cattle. I can't believe that we would kiss any. When do we say we've had enough. Days before the border opens we're all "warm and fuzzie", and our memmmories of the past 21 months are opliterated.
I think the beef industry is basically regrouped and are doing OK at the current market.
So.
If the americans think they want to buy our cattle - why don't we tell them the cattle are in the pen, and if they want them they can figure out how to get them home. FOB our loading dock!!
If they don't whant them then stay home.

[kato]

I know of at least one feedlot that had a bunch of fats lined up to go next week, with the proceeds going to their American owners.

I wonder what those guys have to say?

[SASH]

I was actually a bit surprised that the judge would have got away with this. The packers are alot bigger money outfits than R-CALF. I'll bet the Packers are plotting already. Its just a matter of time, now, before the border opens. If we were smart we'd be using this time to get our slaughter capacity up and running. It sure would be nice to remove all those packing plants and jobs from the Northern US. Revenge would be sweet.

[15444]

Woolybear:

Good to have someone who is trying to motivate others to band together and get things done for the Canadian producer. Although maybe in vain?
It would be nice to see action taken to satisfy Japanese and Korean markets for our product, but already CBEF (and I imagine CCA) are talking about how they are going to have to dig their heals into the US. So already you have the main industry leaders telling everyone 'Nope, that border will open, might be in 15 years, but it'll open.' I wouldn't mind seeing the paycheck that SOB's like Stan Eby take home.

I wonder how many producers will just cut and run now? Producers around our area have been selling their cowherds for the last 6 months and planning to sell the farms this summer, regardless of the border...though I don't know if there will be any takers. Now with this announcement, I wonder how many others with join that bandwagon?

[WoolyBear]

15444

I'm afraid I don't deserve any praise for my comments if you did indeed send me any.

I'm one of those producers that they call transitional. Too small to show up on anyones radar screen to deserve a phone call by company reps when there are special production contracts or DEALS! Too cashflow consious to go looking for them, I'm also a large enough and a diversified producer that can't afford to leave the farm for an off farm job. If I did, production problems could quickly arise that could wipe out a month's salary.

This whole business is only being held together by those with the capital, and or the leadership that those of us that can, will follow. I wish I had more of either to help.

[grassguy]

Message to 15444, I have no problem with you not agreeing with the CCA, that is your right. I do have a problem with you referring to Stan Eby as a SOB. He is a regular guy like you and I doing what he thinks is best. He does not get a paycheque. It could be said he has to be a sucessful cattleman in order to sacrfice his time to lead the CCA. Perhaps we should have gone a different direction in this fight. Time will tell. Hindsight is 20/20. We would have been totally lost if we had not the CCA in place all along.

[jensend]

i just want to know when our government(s) and industry leaders (?) are going to come to the realization that this is the future. other industries have learned the americans are not our friends and have no intention of trading freely or fairly and the situation is now the same with beef. we are a bse nation and should test to our customers' satisfaction. there has been so much stupidity on the part of abp, cca and the federal government costing producers huge sums of money. why do they continue to try to break the industry?

[rkaiser]

Sorry grassguy, but I don't understand your statement. "We would have been totally lost if we had not had the CCA in place all along."

What is it that CCA has done?

[15444]

grassguy,

I don't limit my hatred towards Eby, it goes for past CCA prez Neil Jahnke and Ian McKillop and his buddies at OCA. They all don't have a clue about what the majority of producers want, although they claim they do. An example?: McKillop came to the local cattlemen's meeting a few years ago and basically got his ass handed to him for spewing what he thought were the facts about the cattle industry in Ontario. At one point he lectured about 50 producers about sending their checkoff dollars in for cattle they sold in Manitoba and privately....he got laughed at a bit for that one.

The only guys who know what they want at any of the levels of the industry are the ones who are too busy working their asses off, trying to make their farm succeed, to waste their time with the bureaucratic nonsense of these organizations.

Eby gets his travel expenses paid for by the CCA. When he was part of OCA, I never saw the point of give himing $2.25 a head to go ramble the exact same damn speech across the province, and I still don't see a purpose to him at the federal level.

[cowsense]

15444.... talk about setting up a 360 degree firing squad. Your rant against Stan Eby and the CCA is totally disgusting and totally uncalled for. What have YOU ever done to improve our industry ! Feel free to disagree but do not run down the efforts made by thousands of voluntary members from right across Canada that give freely of their own time and resources (often at the expense of their own operations). We've got enough problems with R-calf without Canadians trying to rip our industry apart!!!

[15444]

Well cowsense, these guys could actually do the industry a long term favour and work towards dissolving some of these 'useless and inefficient' organizations? You go to each province and which group should you listen too?

I live in Ontario, but am occasionally interested in the positions of the Manitoba organizations. Sometimes I agree with KAP and sometimes with MCPA, but who should I actually listen to? Who is the actual representative of Manitoba producers?

I think this is one of the problems that confuses politicians. You need, at most, one group to represent all the producers in the province, something similar to Quebec. The main problem they all face in that each has their own agenda. They can agree on major things but then tear each other apart on the small crap. And that's when government just sits back and grins.

So what is their real purpose? Name a big thing, and I mean a real BIG thing, that CCA, OCA, OFA, NFU....etc etc have done in the last year? They talked to Bob Speller and now they talk to Andy Mitchell. They get a hand-out here, hand-out there, but nothing long term.

The whole bunch of them are more interested about how they can improve their membership/position today rather then the young pokes who are still going to be in this industry 40 years from now?....although with the help that is given, I am not sure if anyone will be able to correlate Canada and agriculture at all in 20 years.

What have I done for the industry? Given the years still ahead of me, all I can do at this point is basically keep optimistic and listen to everyone in the spectrum (more specifically the young) to figure out what exactly needs to happen when I hit the OCA and CCA boards. I am fiesty and very black and white on the issues so I don't take kindly to the 'hym and haw' crap that government (or anyone) feeds ALL these organizations EXCEPT Quebec, who actually grabs government by the nuts and squeezes.

If you need to think of something, think of this. Everytime your calves go through the sale ring, look at each one and let a little 'cha-ching' cash register sound go off in your head for each checkoff per head. Values vary. Alberta is $3.25 I think? Ontario is $2.25 right now, but they want to jump that up to $5.25. So at the current Ontario rate, for a herd of 30 who sells all their calves every year for 25 years, that represents $1687.50. My proposal? If I have to give the organizations that money, at least let me tell them which area I want it spent in. I'll gladly sign the entire sum over to BIG C or Rancher's Choice.