Northern US Congressmen and cattle producers’ unofficial victory came in 2006 when political power in the US Congress shifted from Democrats to Republicans. This change in power increased support for MCOOL within the political arena and on September 30, 2008 MCOOL became mandatory. Expectedly, the law effectively created a barrier to entry as major US companies refused to accept imported products. This led the Canadian and Mexican governments to establish a dispute settlement panel in October 2009 with the World Trade Organization. On November 18, 2011, the WTO ruled in favour of Canada and Mexico (WTO, 2012). The ruling states that although the US has a right to provide country of origin labeling, the current requirements to comply with MCOOL in the livestock and meat sector constitute a trade barrier by treating imported products differently than domestic products; moreover, that the intent to provide consumers with origin information is not achieved efficiently with the current MCOOL system, thus it constitutes an unnecessary trade barrier (WTO, 2012).
In 2003, an Alberta cow infected with BSE cost the Canadian economy 6 billion dollars
The BSE case and MCOOL interruptions to trade have depicted the importance of integration. As there are no guidelines in CUSTA and NAFTA for how industry regulations need to approach integration, regulatory harmonization has been implemented on an ad hoc basis. This has created
Spring 2012
Canadian student review
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