On Wednesday, an appeal panel under the national Agreement on Internal Trade (AIT), formally released a final ruling upholding Saskatchewan’s successful challenge last spring of the Quebec government’s restrictions on the production, sale and marketing of vegetable oil-based dairy products in its market.
Specifically, it prevents Quebec from using labelling laws that have prohibited use of terms like “milk”, “butter” and “cheese” for dairy substitute products.
The decision opens the door to greater use of Prairie-grown canola and soybeans for use in margarine, coffee whitener and dessert toppings sold in Quebec.
“It’s not a huge deal in relationship to our canola market, but it’s worth going after,” Saskatchewan Agriculture Minister Lyle Stewart said, adding it’s “maybe a medium deal”.
This disagreement is a descendant of others that have been going on for decades as Quebec governments of different political stripes sought to protect the province’s large dairy industry from out-of-province competitors. This specific trade complaint was brought by Saskatchewan in early 2014.
There was a strong hint that Saskatchewan and its allies — Alberta, B.C. and Manitoba — had won this scrap back in December, when Quebec began making changes to its Food Products Act removing barriers to the production and sale of vegetable-based oil products.
For much of the fight, Quebec’s lawyers argued that the ban was legitimate consumer protection and denied the policy only shields dairy farmers and butter against competition.
“I like to think that Quebec will just drop this thing now,” said Stewart.
“Whenever we see our producers disadvantaged, we try to step in and straighten out these issues,” he added, citing a parallel case on the labelling of canola oil in India and the province’s support to Ottawa’s fight against U.S. country-of-origin labelling (COOL).
The AIT is an intergovernmental trade agreement signed in 1994 by Canadian first ministers. Its purpose is to reduce and eliminate, to the extent possible, barriers to the free movement of persons, goods, services, and investment within Canada “so as to establish an open, efficient, and stable domestic market,” says the secretariat that oversees the agreement. “Access to the dispute-resolution mechanisms of the AIT is open to governments, individuals and businesses,” its website says.
Source: Leader Post
