Posted on 03/04/2005 8:23:16 AM PST by BigSkyFreeper
TORONTO -- Some call it protectionism, others payback. But ranchers in Western Canada agree the U.S. ban on Canadian beef is no longer about mad cow disease.
The Senate voted Thursday to overturn the Bush administration's decision to allow Canadian cattle into the country nearly two years after they were banned because of brain-wasting illness. The vote came a day after a U.S. federal judge granted a temporary injunction by U.S. ranchers.
Danny Rosehill of the Olds Auction Mart in Calgary said U.S. District Judge Richard Cebull's ruling was not only biased in favor of cattlemen in Montana but indicative of the increasingly testy relations between the world's largest trading partners.
Canada declined to join the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and then, last week, Prime Minister Paul Martin announced Ottawa would opt out of Washington's proposed continental missile shield. The White House was so peeved that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice canceled a trip to Ottawa.
"Why would the United States want to play ball with us? They come to us with hat in hand, asking for support on the war, and we say no," Rosehill said in a telephone interview from Calgary. "They come to us with hat in hand on this missile thing, and we say no."
Rosehill speaks for many Albertans in the western province, Canada's most conservative. Its leader, Premier Ralph Klein, was one of the few Canadian leaders to pledge support of the U.S. war in Iraq and often plays apologist for his traditionally liberal nation.
Canadian ranchers have been devastated by the ban on beef, in effect since May 2003 after an Albertan-born cow in Washington state was found ill with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE. Humans who eat BSE-contaminated tissue can contract a degenerative, fatal brain disorder.
The Canadian cattle industry has lost about $5.6 billion since then.
A pound of steer dropped from 88 cents in May 2003 to 22 cents after the ban. In the last few weeks, it has inched back up to 73 cents, according to the Canadian Cattlemen's Association, in anticipation of the border's opening up again.
The R-CALF United Stockgrowers of America, based in Billings, Mont., argued before Cebull that the USDA plan to reintroduce Canadian beef would pose a risk to consumers and U.S. cattle producers. The group asked the judge to block the reopening until its lawsuit was heard, and he complied.
John Masswohl, spokesman for the Canadian Cattlemen's Association, said the court ruling and subsequent Senate vote has nothing to do with health, missiles or the Iraqi war.
"None of this is about food safety or animal health or anything to do with disease," he said. "It's all about the money."
He said the Senators who voted in favor of the bill on Thursday mainly represent big beef-producing states such as North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming.
Rosehill and Masswohl both said Canadian cattlemen need to look East for new markets and curb their dependence on Americans to buy and chow down their beef. Canada sends 60 percent of its livestock to the United States, followed by Japan, South Korea and Mexico.
I had a wonderful piece of Alberta beef at a restaurant called Saltlick in Calgary. They had some wonderful local beers to go with it.
If this keeps up, it will only hurt the US meat-packing industry. As it is now, beef producers in Canada are considering setting up their own processing and packing plants to handle their cattle, for export to the US or elsewhere. They were perfectly happy sending their live cattle to the US for processing, but they'll have to do something else if they can't.
This is very similar to what has happened in the Canadian softwood lumber industry since the US trade barriers went up against it - they've increased efficiency and sought out other markets, where they're handily out-competing the protected US industry. Protectionism doesn't work.
The Salt Lick in Driftwood Texas is far better that that so called "salt lick" in Canuckistan.
I don't have to eat at that pale Northern imitation to know it's true.
PS: The REAL Salt Lick is in a dry county. So BYOB and have any beer (Or whatever.) you want.
Yep he sure will
Kyoto Protocol was all about protectionism as well. It protected the less fortunate countries from our advancing technology and know-how and stifled the United States from it's own advancing know-how.
yeah this latest move is pure greed on the part of the US meat industry, pure and simple, in fact the whole ban has been about greed not Mad Cow concerns
because boy oh boy, the US meat industry was jumping up and down when Japan did the same thing to the US as the US is doing to Canada and Japan, I believe, took its own sweet time lifting the ban on US beef imports to Japan - in all these cases, it was just taking advantage of the situation for profit, pure and simple
frankly I don't know why (I know why most Canadians lack foresight and enterprise) someone didn't set up more processing plants in Canada a long time ago, or certainly when it became clear the Canadian government was going to be impotent in getting the ban lifted in any timely manner
oh by the way US, Canada is flooded with oil eh, Canadians need to learn to play hardball in ways the US can respect, not on missile defense......
If it really was that different it would vote itself out of Canada like Quebec perenially threatens to do and apply for admission as the 51st state.
So9
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