The General Manager of Manitoba Pork says Canada’s own regulatory system is making its farmers less competitive internationally and hampering their ability to provide the world with food.
Manitoba Pork General Manager Cam Dahl says when the costs imposed on Canadian agriculture as the result of regulations are higher than they are in countries like the United States or Brazil it means that Canadian farmers are less competitive.
One of the most cited examples is the carbon tax. That’s a regulation or legislation that imposes a tax on Canadian farmers that doesn’t exist in other countries. So, it’s making it more expensive to heat and cool barns here in Canada and in Manitoba and that makes us less competitive.
But there are other ways that our regulatory system can increase that cost of regulation. One of those is the approval processes for whether they’re new crops or new animal health or animal nutrition products. If we see a new product that is able to improve gut health for example, and our American competitors have access to it but we don’t because of the slow pace of the Canadian regulatory approval process, then again our competitors have an advantage because of our regulatory system. Those are the areas that we really do need to look at changing.
There are examples of products that the U.S. has that the companies don’t even apply for in Canada because of the cost and the time our regulatory system needs to get through the processes. This is something that we really do need to focus on as a country and from a policy perspective.
~ Cam Dahl, Manitoba Pork
Dahl calls on the Government of Canada to do everything in its power to counter regulations in other countries, such as U.S. voluntary country of labelling and European regulations that restrict Canadian red meat exports, that undermine the competitiveness of Canadian farmers.
