Farm-Scape, Episode 2060

With the United States government's pending repeal of the Byrd Amendment, the Canadian Pork Council is calling on Ottawa to remove a 15 percent retaliatory duty on live hogs entering Canada from the US.

The Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act, commonly referred to as the Byrd Amendment, was passed in 2000 and authorizes paying anti-dumping and countervailing duties collected on imported products to be turned over to the US companies that initiated the trade actions.

In response to a 2003 World Trade organization determination that ruled the provision illegal and authorized retaliatory duties on imported American goods, the US government has agreed to repeal the amendment effective October 2007.

In a letter to the acting Director General of Trade Policy, Canadian Pork Council Executive Director Martin Rice notes the CPC and several of its member organizations are engaged in a number of efforts aimed at achieving more harmonious trade relations with the US swine industry.

"Because we are wanting to normalize, wherever we can, trade between Canada and the US in swine and swine products and our counterpart, the National Pork Producers Council, is on record as not supporting Byrd we are asking the federal government to remove it from the list.

To date we have not seen much practical interest in bringing live swine into Canada but, things like the corn countervail and as the US moves toward more equivalent health status, we could see more opportunity in the future for lives swine to come into Canada.

We would see removal of swine from the retaliation list as being another element of the effort to have totally open trade conditions between Canada and the US in live swine and products.

Rice suggests removal of swine from the retaliation list is an appropriate next step towards achieving more favorable trade conditions for swine and swine products and a mutual recognition of the benefits of an integrated market.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.