Canadian Cattlemen’s Association Announces Action Plan Priorities
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Canadian Cattlemen’s Association Seek Immediate Initiation of Dispute Settlement Proceedings
The Canadian Cattlemen’s Association has
approved a set of priority actions to ensure the immediate survival of
producers and long term strength of the Canadian cattle and beef industry.
Amongst the priorities are actions to increase slaughter capacity, increase
access to international markets, extend set-aside programs and expedite age
verification systems.
“Canadian cattle producers are determined to regain control of their
destiny,” said CCA President Stan Eby. “We are positioning the industry to
deal with whatever circumstances present themselves”.
The central objective of the action plan is to ensure that Canadians have
options to market live cattle and beef at profitable prices. The industry must
process more cattle in Canada as well as pursue legal action to regain access
to U.S. facilities. The CCA has already sought intervener status in the U.S.
District Court in Montana, where a small group of U.S. producers is seeking to
permanently prevent USDA from resuming cattle and beef trade with Canada. The
action plan requests the Government of Canada to take a further step by
immediately initiating dispute settlement proceedings under trade agreements.
“Despite the U.S. Department of Agriculture and President Bush agreeing
that trade in cattle should be resumed, the matter has been frustrated by
other U.S. entities that want the border to remain closed” remarked Eby. “We
believe that initiating formal consultations under the North American Free
Trade Agreement will provide a further avenue to demonstrate why resuming
trade is in the U.S. best interest”.
The Action Plan was approved by the CCA during its Annual General Meeting
which took place in Ottawa, March 22 – 24. Other highlights of the plan
include seeking changes to the Canadian Agriculture Income Stabilization
(CAIS) program, development of an emergency cattle harvest strategy and
elimination of supplemental beef imports.
Also at the Annual General Meeting, Stan Eby of Kincardine, Ontario was
re-elected to a second one-year term as President and Hugh Lynch-Staunton of
Lundbreck, Alberta was re-elected as Vice-President.
BSE ACTION PLAN PRIORITIES
Realizing that the development of a comprehensive strategy is difficult
given the uncertainty of future events, it is important to develop a set of
immediate recommendations to governments and producers. This process can begin
while the final comprehensive contingency plan is developed to deal with the
ongoing issues that the cattle industry is facing. Additionally, the
strategies may need to be modified if events, unknown to the industry at this
time, occur.
There are several actions that can be initiated immediately that will
assist the industry regardless of these future events. For this reason, a set
of action items and recommendations has been developed. Within the action
plan, there are key recommendations that, if implemented, could have positive
effects on other areas, or make these recommendations less time critical. For
this reason it is prudent to prioritize some of the key items to provide
clarity to the recommendation process.
Immediate Action Items
1. Actions to create increased slaughter capacity in the shortest
time possible.
2. Actions that would protect and increase access to international
markets.
3. Extension and enhancement of the set aside programs to provide
stability to cattle prices.
4. Actions to fast track age verification within the CCIA system.
Critical Action Items
1. Implementation of changes to CAIS to provide access to income
support.
2. Comprehensive evaluation of export certification, including BSE
testing for market access.
3. Identification of new international markets that could be accessed
through greater certification.
Important Action Items
1. Announcement of intention to eliminate supplementary import
permits.
2. Commencement of trade dispute actions by the Federal Government.
3. Preparation of an emergency slaughter strategy that could be
quickly implemented if necessary.
@ March 28, 2005