Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz told Meatingplace Magazine
that he’s optimistic the United States’ politicians will, in the end, “do the
right thing” and drop mandatory County of Origin Labeling requirements that
discriminate against imported cattle and hogs.
In an exclusive interview, part of which is posted on the
magazine’s website, Ritz also said Canada’s list of retaliatory items includes
beef, pork, California wines, office furniture, mattresses and some sugar
products.
The United States has not yet complied with World Trade
Organization orders to either scrap or radically reform its COOL regulations so
they comply with the trade agreement the U.S. has signed.
If they fail to comply, Canada will be in a position to
impose punitive tariffs and that’s what the list Ritz outlined is about.
The list is “probably politically
motivated but there are people who need to know the hurt this is causing on
both sides of the border,” Ritz said.
And he said he’s driving the message home with
Americans who can pressure the politicians.
“I talk with representatives at the state level
about jobs going missing … as a direct resuIt of COOL,” he said.
He told a packed room at the American Meat
Institute meeting in Chicago that COOL could cost American meat packers 9,000
jobs and said seven plants will be at risk of closing.
In the Meatingplace interview, Ritz said “Seventy
percent of our meat products come south for processing, and what that’s going
to do is drive us to open more processing on the Canadian side which will have
a longer-term negative effect on meat in the U.S.”
Ritz also said Mexico and Canada had a deal
with the Bush administration which was prepared to allow meat to be labeled as
produced or processed within NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement
area), but Obama’s administration nixed the deal.
Ritz's message probably went down well with the meat packers at the convention, and with Meatingplace subscribers, but it's hard to imagine in playing out well with politicians in Washington and ordinary, every-day Americans.
They are as likely to welcome a lecture from Canadian Ritz about how their country is out of line as Canadians would welcome U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack if he came to the annual meeting of Dairy Farmers of Canada to slam supply management.
