The following is excerpted from the 9 April 2013 news release by Agriculture Canada.
Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz concluded his trade mission to the United States where he advocated for measures that would bring the U.S. into full compliance with its WTO obligations on the mandatory Country-of-Origin Labelling (COOL)…
In Washington D.C., Minister Ritz met with his counterpart USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack to express Canada's strong disappointment with the proposed Country-of-Origin Labelling regulatory changes put forward by the U.S. Minister Ritz underlined that the proposed changes will not bring the U.S. into compliance with its WTO obligations and will further increase discrimination against exports of cattle and hogs from Canada, increasing damages to the Canadian industry. "Our Government will consider all options, including extensive retaliatory measures, should the U.S. not achieve compliance by May 23, 2013, as mandated by the WTO."
… Over the past three years, approximately $38 billion in agricultural trade has crossed the Canada-U.S. border annually.
This news release is available in its entirety at: http://www.agr.gc.ca/cb/index_e.php?s1=n&s2=2013&page=n130409&src=hp.