International Trade committee  Well, the NCBA is the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, and this was another beef farmer association.

International Trade committee  It's bovine spongiform encephalopathy.

International Trade committee  Good morning, everyone, and thank you for inviting us to speak to you this morning. My name is Jim Laws. I am the executive director of the Canadian Meat Council. We are Canada's national association representing federally inspected meat packers and processors in Canada. With me

Agriculture committee  The reason you should not be overly concerned about it is that right now the border with the United States is open. Effectively, we do operate in a North American market, and that provides plenty of bidding opportunities, for all Canadian farmers as well as for packers, to sell t

Agriculture committee  I want to add as well that many of the packers buy cattle on specific programs. If they have been specially fed to handle a certain brand market that the packers have, they need to make sure they have those cattle lined up. Some of the packers have their pricing out a year in adv

Agriculture committee  I want to add something with regard to your previous question concerning the minister's visit to Saudi Arabia. We have one particular sector of our industry, the veal sector.... There is Ecolait in Montreal, and Delft Blue out of the Cambridge area. They have quite a veal industr

Agriculture committee  Indeed, last year, red meat slaughter houses received $2 million back to cover the costs they had paid. Furthermore, one of the recommendations contained in the report prepared by this Committee with the help of the industry and producers was aimed at eliminating regular hour in

Agriculture committee  Yes, precisely.

Agriculture committee  Yes.

Agriculture committee  It is a little bit more than that.

Agriculture committee  That is exactly it. In the food sector, we are the only industry in Canada for which, in accordance with the law and the regulations, a large number of inspections are assigned to each federally regulated plant. On top of that, we pay inspection fees. We believe that we should no

Agriculture committee  Good morning, everyone. Thank you for inviting us to speak before you. My name is Jim Laws. I'm the executive director of the Canadian Meat Council. With me today is Mr. Brian Read. He is the chair of our beef committee and also the general manager of Colbex-Levinoff, a beef cat

Agriculture committee  I only want to reiterate that we don't use “Product of Canada”. As you saw, we use this label. I'm not sure--what is your response? What does this mean to you?

Agriculture committee  Yes, very briefly. I think, clearly, they need to resource that. If they're going to put undue regulations, as they always do, on the meat sector, it's not fair. First of all, if it's a fair thing, that's life, but if the other sectors are not unduly regulated, it's not fair. Wh

Agriculture committee  There you go. As Robert mentioned, there are products coming in from the United States in the box that are compliant, but retailers open the box, take out these big muscle cuts, slap them on the shelf, and they're not compliant. So it's not true that they're all entirely complia