Farm-Scape, Episode 1582

The US Department of Commerce has determined federal and provincial government payments to the Canadian swine industry do not violate US subsidy laws.

Petitions filed in March on behalf of US pork producers claimed illegally subsidized Canadian hogs being dumped into the US where lowering US prices harming US producers and called for countervail and anti dumping duties.

In a preliminary determination, released yesterday, the US Department of Commerce ruled Canadian swine producers are not receiving countervailable subsidies.

Matt McCullough, an attorney with the Washington based firm representing Manitoba Pork Council and individual respondents in the countervail duty case, says the ruling vindicates Canadian swine producers.

"This whole case was sold to a lot of people in the US industry based on claims of substantial subsidies to the Canadian industry.

This preliminary determination refutes and dispels that notion. The next step in this process in the subsidy case is verifying all the all the information and numbers that have been provided by the industry and the government.

The Department of Commerce will come to Canada and verify the information that has been provided and the department will arrive at a final determination on subsidies sometime late this year or early next year.

If their finding remains that there are no countervailable subsidies, which we are confident will be the case, the subsidy case goes away."

McCullough says the significance of the yesterday's ruling is that there will be no trade restraints placed on Canadian hogs at this point.

He says the hope is that the ruling will prompt the US industry to step back and reassess its position on the issue and he would like to see this case withdrawn.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.