Canada Challenges COOL

OTTAWA — Canada took the first step Thursday in challenging the United States before the World Trade Organization on its COOL food labeling legislation said to cost Canada hundreds of millions of dollars in reduced cattle and swine exports.

The federal government announced that a request has gone to the WTO for consultations with the United States on its 2008 Country Of Origin Labeling legislation. If consultations do not resolve the dispute within 60 days, Canada would take the United States before a WTO disputes panel for a decision. Mexico is filing a similar WTO request, the announcement said.

Canada’s complaint is against the legislation but also particularly against a February 20 letter from U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to the U.S. food processing industry saying plants should go beyond the legislation and label meat and some fresh produce as coming specifically from Canada or Mexico rather than from North America. If they do not, he said, he would move to have COOL provisions rewritten.

Country-of-origin labeling is required under the June, 2008, Food, Conservation and Energy Act, implemented from September 30, 2008, on an interim basis and since March 16 this year on a final basis. Consumers have to be told on labels the country of origin for beef, pork, lamb, chicken and goat meat and for some fresh produce.

Canada says U.S. processors "are choosing not to buy Canadian animals, or are trying to buy them at a reduced price." Cattle and swine exporting associations, especially, claim exporters are losing sales in the hundreds of millions of dollars. An example given of additional costs imposed on U.S. purchasers of Canadian animals is that feedlots and slaughter plants must now segregate Canadian animals in separate facilities.

Canada started the WTO process last year but suspended it in January when the U.S. government revised the final version to allow labels to say the product comes from North America. But then Secretary Vilsack’s letter to the industry says products should be identified as coming from Canada or Mexico.

Canada exports roughly $3.4 billion in hogs and cattle to the United States yearly, part of $13.2 billion in agricultural sales (excluding fish). Canada takes from the United States about $14 billion in consumer food imports.

Contact Courtney Tower at ctower@sympatico.ca .