Last week, China banned all shipments of Canadian meat following the discovery of what is believed to be forged export certificates.

Gary Stordy is the director of government & corporate affairs with the Canadian Pork Council (CPC).

"The investigation with the RCMP is ongoing," he said. "We're not involved in that particular process, but we know that they've started their initial investigation and ideally and hopefully they'll complete that process relatively soon just so that we can have some of the information."

Stordy says as the situation drags on, it will have an impact on the value chain.

"It's going to be a death by a thousand cuts situation where it's going to subtly build up to a point where it creates some instability in our marketing conditions."

He notes the timing of the ban is unfortunate, as Canadian producers will no longer be able to take advantage of the African swine fever outbreak in China.

Stordy says he is encouraged by the level of discussion between officials, although is unsure whether or not Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was able to raise the issue this past weekend at the G20 Summit in Japan.

 

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