The Chicken Farmers of Canada
national supply management agency says it supports the deal finalized this week
by 12 countries involved in the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
While it has concerns about the
increase in allowable imports, it welcomes the promise to crack down on imports
the agency considers illegal.
“As a result of the TPP agreement,
Canada will be required to increase its market access for chicken by 28 per
cent to almost 10 per cent of our consumption,” says the agency.
“This is a heavy hit. Given this
additional access, we are counting on the government to cease the practice of
regularly issuing supplementary import allocations.
“Nonetheless, Chicken Farmers of
Canada is pleased that the government announced that it will put in place
long-term, meaningful fixes to end existing practices that have cost the
chicken industry thousands of jobs, millions of kilograms in production,
millions of dollars in revenues and millions of dollars in GDP contributions to
the Canadian economy.
“This historic TPP agreement, when
combined with these long-term fixes to re-establish the integrity of the import
control pillar for chicken, will provide the chicken industry with a generation
of stability and certainty.
“These current fraudulent
practices include being able to import unlimited quantities of chicken by
simply adding sauce or other ingredients, importing spent fowl and falsely
declaring it as chicken, and allowing companies to substitute high-value
imported cuts with low-value domestic cuts for re-export.”
