September 21, 2018 will be a day many of our friends and families will never forget. When a couple tornados touched down in and near the Ottawa-Gatineau area, trees came down, shingles blew off, roofs blew away and entire houses were torn apart. Power transmission stations were destroyed, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without hydro. Most stoplights went dark, gas stations closed — even coffee shops were closed. Canada’s Experimental Farm in the centre of Ottawa lost power, but like all other dairy farms in Canada, they had to get a generator going to milk the cows and feed the animals even if their own generator wouldn’t work.
For several months, we have listened to our neighbouring president complain about how unfair Canadians are at the NAFTA negotiating table because Canada wouldn’t roll over and play dead.
In previous negotiations Canadian negotiators have looked like boy scouts when we gave away more dairy access at both FTA and the first NAFTA negotiations. Until now Canada allows 10 per cent of our dairy consumption to be imported with zero tariffs while the US only allow three per cent access to their dairy market without tariff.
Yes, the US has tariffs too. If we shot every milk cow in Canada and gave our entire dairy market to the US, they would still have a mountain of dairy surplus and use billions of their taxpayer’s dollars propping up their dairy farms.
Canada used to have an unmanageable surplus of dairy products before we introduced a system to control our production and give government, processors, retailers and consumers a say in what dairy products sold for.
Then there is the soft wood lumber dispute. More than a decade ago Canada went to the dispute table over the US unfairly charging tariffs on Canadian softwood lumber and shingles. Canada won the dispute. The US appealed the decision and Canada won again.
The US owed millions of dollars of unfairly collected tariffs to be paid back. Then our federal government changed and for some untold reason that unfairly collected tariff was never completely paid back.
In 1965 an Auto Pact between Canada and the US was signed which guaranteed that a very large percentage of auto parts would be manufactured in each country. For some untold reason, the Auto Pact was allowed to expire without any explanation. Since it expired much of Canada’s auto and heavy truck manufacturing has moved to the southern US or Mexico where there are no unions or minimum wage laws. No one likes to take the blame when things don’t work out but maybe it’s time the leaders read some history books and maybe even looked in the mirror.
Sixteen years ago mad cow disease left Canadian farmers with no export markets. When a farmer sold an animal that usually sold for $1,000 after mad cow hit, after shipping, he received only a few dollars or sometimes ended up with just a bill for transporting the animal to the sale or a bill for selling it at the sale barn.
Canadian farmers still thank their consumers for continuing to support them by continuing to buy homegrown meat throughout the crisis. Through that period, hundreds of people in San Francisco died from smog- related diseases but not one from eating Canadian meat.
Since then Canada has introduced identification and a tagging system for all domestic animals and farmers record each animal and track it from birth to when it dies. The animals’ parents, grandparents and great- grandparents are also recorded. Every time the animal is treated with anything, the sickness and treatment is recorded. If the animal is sold to another farmer that is also recorded and the record follows the animal.
About the same time that mad cow was discovered in Canada, chronic wasting disease — which is very similar to mad cow — was discovered in the wild deer population. There is absolutely no tagging or records kept for the wild animal population but until now there has never been any record of chronic wasting disease crossing over to infect domestic animals.
Now a new dark cloud looms over every animal farmer because there has been a case recorded of a domestic animal on a farm in the upper Outaouais. The first precaution has already been implemented by stopping the white tail deer hunt until further notice. That farm where the infected animal was discovered is quarantined.
Just like when any dark cloud appears over our heads we don’t know whether it will pass with a light rain or turn into a devastating tornado.
Chris Judd is a farmer in Clarendon on land that has been in his family for generations. gladcrest@gmail.com
