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Selinger to meet with U.S. lawmakers

By: Bruce Owen

4/02/2010 1:00 AM | Comments: 0

PREMIER Greg Selinger hopes the guy who used to occupy his office can snag him a meeting with U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack in Washington D.C. later this month.Selinger said Wednesday he's working with former premier and Canadian ambassador Gary Doer to arrange a meeting when he and other premiers travel south Feb. 20 to meet U.S. lawmakers on trade, border security, energy and other issues.

"It's being arranged through my correspondence with the ambassador asking him to get going on it," Selinger said after a speech at the University of Manitoba.

Selinger said the meeting with Vilsack is aimed at telling the Obama administration the year-old U.S. country of origin labelling (COOL) requirements have devastated the Canadian cattle and pork industry. Farmers here say labelling is a trade barrier because big U.S. markets once open to them are shut.

Under COOL, processing plants and retailers in the U.S. are gun-shy of buying Canadian animals because they must segregate live Canadian cattle and hogs from U.S. animals. The finished product must then be labelled as containing Canadian meat. This separate labelling is costly for most U.S. processors so they don't accept Canadian animals.

"We also believe there's growing evidence it's hurting American interests as well," Selinger said.

Selinger will join Saskatchewan's Brad Wall, Ontario's Dalton McGuinty and Quebec's Jean Charest on the trip.

bruce.owen@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 4, 2010 A4

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