Farmscape for September 21, 2010   (Episode 3417)

The chair of the Canadian Pork Council's trade committee says U.S. Mandatory Country of Origin Labelling legislation is more about protectionism than about providing consumers product information.

Last week a World Trade Organization Dispute Settlement Panel, struck to address Canada's and Mexico's complaint against U.S. Mandatory Country of Origin Labelling, heard preliminary arguments in the case.

Florian Possberg, the chair of the Canadian Pork Council's trade committee and a member of a pork industry delegation that traveled to Geneva to provide background support for the Canadian legal team, says this case has the potential to set a precedent for the way labelling is used in trade law around the globe.

Clip-Florian Possberg-Canadian Pork Council:
Our issue with Country of Origin Labelling as defined by the U.S. is that it is very acceptable for a country to have Country of Origin Labelling laws.

In fact Canada has some as well.

What we have issue with is, number one it's mandatory and number two the onus behind getting this legislation in place we believe was very little to do with providing consumers with information that they were demanding and a lot to do with providing a non-tariff barrier to Canadian pork competing with U.S. product in U.S. stores.

That is absolutely illegal in our minds and in the WTO trade laws.

That's really what we're arguing with the U.S. is that this whole initiative was trade protectionism, very little to do with consumer information.

The second round of hearings is set for early December in Geneva.

Possberg says realistically the process is expected to take a year before the panel renders its ruling.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

       *Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork Council