In the wake of the signing of the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement, the Canadian Pork Council is urging the Federal Government to refocus its attention on projects that have been delayed due to ongoing trade negotiations.
On Friday, prior to the start of the G20 meeting in Buenos Aires, Canada, the United Sates and Mexico signed the updated North American trade agreement.
With that milestone having been reached, the Canadian Pork Council is calling on Ottawa to move on the creation of a Pork Promotion and Research Agency.
Gary Stordy, the Director of Government and Corporate Affairs with the Canadian Pork Council, says the Canadian pork sector is coming into this quite late in the game.
We do have a promotion and research agency already operating within the Canadian beef sector that we looked at, the model to work off of. In addition what we’re developing is very similar and establishes the same authorities as what’s established in the United States. Most of the commodity groups have research and promotion agencies, or checkoff agencies so we looked to those models to make sure that we’re following hand in hand in Canada.
The other aspect is that, with this system that’s already in place where producers pay a levy, there could be a levy attached to imported pork and pork products. Frankly it’s no different that what’s happening in the U.S. where any pork product going into the U.S. gets charged a levy. Canadian producers and industry have been paying that levy to the U.S. checkoff since it started.
~ Gary Stordy, Canadian Pork Council
Stordy says, considering Canada’s trade outlook is now on firm ground this project offers an excellent opportunity for the domestic pork sector to enhance research and promotion at little or no additional cost to producers.
