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For Immediate Release: Canola Growers and Processors Ask Western Provinces to Crackdown on Quebec ButterQuebec
Reneges on Dispute Resolution Process on Margarine Colour Complaint
December 5, 2002 (Winnipeg, Manitoba) -- Canada’s canola growers and oilseed processors have asked Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia to ban the importation of yellow-coloured butter from Quebec to those provinces. The request follows Quebec’s latest failure to repeal its margarine colour regulation designed to protect Quebec dairy farmers and butter makers. The regulation requires margarine, made mainly from western-grown canola and Ontario-grown soybeans, to be white in Quebec. “In spite of its written agreement made earlier this year
to have Ontario’s margarine colour complaint heard by an arbitration panel,
Quebec has reneged again,” said Ross Ravelli, President of the Canadian Canola
Growers Association, representing 70,000 canola growers. “Quebec failed to nominate a panelist by August 30th
and failed to make its defence submission by October 30th as they had
agreed to do in writing.” “Fair is fair. This
is a simple request for reciprocal action that will place the same colour
restriction on butter exported from Quebec for sale in western Canada that
applies to canola and soy-based margarine sold in Quebec.
Consumers in western Canada have every right to be able to identify
butter from a jurisdiction that discriminates against the western oilseed
farmer,” added Ravelli. Ontario formally challenged Quebec under the Agreement on
Internal Trade for its failure to repeal its margarine colour regulation in
September 1997. Earlier this year,
canola growers and oilseed processors requested that Manitoba, Saskatchewan and
Alberta intervene to support Ontario’s challenge because of the economic
injury caused to the oilseed industry. “The cost to date, to the
Canadian oilseed industry, including growers, processors and margarine makers,
of Quebec’s failure to repeal the margarine colour regulation, is $85
million,” said Bob Broeska, President of the Canadian Oilseed Processors
Association. “We are now into our sixth year of being denied fair
market access and anticipate another $17 million in losses by September 2003.
This loss constitutes a direct transfer from, principally, western
farmers and processors to Quebec dairy farmers,” added Broeska. Nationally, margarine’s share
of the combined butter/margarine market is 67 per cent; whereas in Quebec
margarine’s share of the combined market is only 58 per cent.
Since September 1, 1997, when Quebec was obligated to repeal the colour
regulation as a signatory to the Agreement on Internal Trade, the oilseed and
margarine industries have lost $85 million or $17 million annually at current
consumption levels. This loss will continue until the regulation is repealed. Quebec’s margarine colour
regulation is also the subject of a legal challenge by Unilever
Canada, a
leading margarine-maker. A decision
from a March 2002 Quebec Court of Appeal hearing is pending. The Canadian Oilseed Processors
Association is a federally incorporated non-profit industry association, whose
members include ADM Agri-Industries Ltd.,
Bunge Canada, Canbra Foods and
Cargill Limited. The oilseed
processing industry in Canada provides a $1.2 billion market for seed sale by
farmers and employs 1,200 people in the food manufacturing sector.
The industry’s total direct economic benefit amounts to $3 billion with
a total indirect economic benefit of $2 billion. The 70,000 members of the
Canadian Canola Growers Association, with farms predominantly in Saskatchewan,
Alberta and Manitoba, produce more than five million metric tonnes of canola
annually with a direct and indirect economic benefit of
$3 billion. -- 30 -- For Information: Bob Broeska Ross Ravelli Sean McPhee Provincial Canola Growers Associations: Alberta Canola Producers
Association Saskatchewan Canola Growers Association Manitoba Canola Growers Association |
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