The Federal Agriculture Critic says China's jumped at the opportunity to once again hurt Canada.

China's ban on Canadian meat follows an investigation which found potentially forged paperwork attached to a batch of Canadian pork entering China.

Luc Berthold says this ban in is unacceptable and absurd.

"If we have good relations with China, we could maybe restrict this ban just for pork, or just for part of pork, or just for a company, but because we have no diplomatic relations with China, they just decided to stop all import of Canadian meat."

The Federal Government has asked Mounties to look into the origin of the fraudulent documents to see whether or not they did in fact come from Canada.

Berthold says in talks with Canada's Agriculture Minister, Marie-Claude Bibeau, she has told him this isn't a political issue, only a criminal case.

"Yeah, maybe there is a criminal case, but if we have any relationship with China we could've fixed it and focused on the real problem."

Berthold says they're calling on the Liberal Government to take strong political action to stop this diplomatic dispute.

He adds, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau did not ask for a meeting with the Chinese President, Xi Jinping, at the G20 Summit in Japan, and instead has left the fate of Canadian affairs in the hands of U.S. President Donald Trump to bring forth in his scheduled meeting with Jinping.

"What a shameful thing if we have to rely on other countries just to solve our home dispute with China," Berthold said.

He points to the Conservative's ask earlier this year to launch World Trade Organization complaint against China and to send a delegation to China, which he says the Liberal Government hasn't done.

Berthold is also encouraging producers to contact their MP's to see some action in this emergency.

 

Read more: China Asks Canada To Suspend Meat Export Certificates

Read more: Barlow Not Convinced Trudeau Will See Much Trade Talk With The Chinese At G-20

Read more: Canada's Ag Minister Issues Statement On China Meat Ban

 

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