The recent Manitoulin Cattlemen’s Association meeting held in Spring Bay highlights one of the most significant challenges facing Canadian commerce and competitiveness on the world stage and within our own borders: that is the lack of a level playing field brought about by interprovincial trade barriers both through governmental regulation and the actions of non-governmental agencies.
It is no small wonder that local cattlemen bristle at the idea of a massive increase in the national component of their per head check-off levy on cattle sold in this province—given that other jurisdictions (read western provincial governments) allow their producers to claw back the provincial portion of their own levy, leaving the national cattlemen’s association to pick up the slack.
The funds gained by the check-off levy are used to market beef products and fund research programs on behalf of cattle producers on both the provincial and national levels.
In Ontario, the provincial portion of the levy, like the national portion, is not subject to clawback at the whim of a producer. To any casual observer, this simply isn’t fair.
While nobody likes to pay a levy, as one local cattleman recently noted, there is little question that the check-off levy serves a useful purpose, even if those benefits are not immediately apparent or obvious to a casual observer. The successes recently scored by the Ontario Corn-fed Program in penetrating such historically opaque markets as Japan and other Asiatic countries, as well as the Middle East, are a good case in point. While the programs may take decades to come to fruition, their impact on the financial success of Ontario cattle producers has been very positive by all accounts.
That positive impact should be weighed by Western producers, given the huge number of Western cattle that make their way into Ontario feedlots to be finished before being sold at market. Those who follow the cattle industry note that Western producers are taking closer notice of what is happening in Ontario after many years of considering this province as a minor player in the field.
A lack of recognition of the benefits the national check-off levy provides to Canadian cattlemen might be more attributable to an educational gulf in the selling of those benefits to the industry in the West (and also to some extent here in Ontario) than simply the ability to exercise a clawback of provincial check-offs enjoyed by Western producers—or perhaps it is simply, as many suspect, a corporate reaction to an opportunity to pump up the bottom line.
In any event, such interprovincial imbalances hinders the ability of Canadian producers to compete in an increasingly global marketplace and needs to be addressed. Hopefully, the Western cattlemen will come to recognize the value of supporting their own provincial marketing and research programs and lobby their governments for a change to the voluntary regime, but since nobody likes to pay a levy, holding our collective breath on that front might be ill-advised.
There is definitely a need for leadership on this front, and given the pan-national nature of the issues, national entities need to be involved in finding a solution. It is in all of our interests to address such imbalances and hinderences to smoothly flowing interprovincial trade as soon as possible.
