The wait might be longer than that for a completely open border, says a Canadian Food Inspection Agency manager for exports.

Normally, the process would take one year to 18 months, she said.

Lord believes that Canadian replacement cattle will not be in the latest consultation process but will probably be in the next. The border will open in stages, she concluded.

Meantime, Canadian cattlemen are incensed by what they consider foot dragging by the Canadian government in pressing the United States to open its border. Canada waited until June 12 to ask the U.S. department of Agriculture to open its borders immediately to muscle cuts and live cattle under 30 months for immediate slaughter. The June request, written by Dr. Bryan Evans, of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, didn’t ask for an open border for cull cows or dairy and beef replacement heifers.

That infuriated Canadian farmers. "We are victims of bureaucratic incompetence," said Athens beef farmer Kim Sytsma, eastern Ontario’s representative on the Ontario Cattlemen’s Association (OCA). "They (bureaucrats) seem to answer to nobody but God."

After receiving a copy of the letter, the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association, fighting for members’ livelihoods and driven to desperation, drafted a resolution in late August asking that the government of Canada request the "resumption of trade in all non-specified risk material products and live cattle" with all our trading partners.

Confusion appears to abound in the government. A spokesperson for the Food Inspection Agency told Farmers Forum the agency wasn’t responsible for negotiating the opening of the border. However, the letter from Evans was addressed to Bobby Accord, head of Administration, Animal and Health Services, USDA.

A second CCA resolution asks that the Canadian Food Inspection agency, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and industry establish a closer relationship for trade. Dennis Laycraft, General manager of the CCA, says dealing with the federal government has been frustrating. "The government has to be a trade facilitator," he said. "It has to change its mandate" and must be more than a caretaker.

While the inspection agency has now asked that the border be open to all live, low risk ruminants, no evidence has been presented to indicate that dairy replacement heifers and cows have been included. A low risk animal is 30 months of age or younger.

Compounding the crisis is how to handle a huge cull-cow kill in Canada. Meantime, there is a flood of imported beef still arriving in Canada. Through its trade agreement, Canada has opened its border to 76,000 tonnes of meat from non NAFTA countries, already more generous on a per capita basis than the United States. In 2002, Canada imported 126,000 tonnes of beef. This year, Canada has authorized 132,000 tonnes.

But from January 1 until August 9 this year, Canada imported 156,900 tonnes, including meat from the U.S., 11 per cent higher than for the same period last year. Imports accelerated when the BSE crisis was announced. By mid-July, the Canadian government stopped issuing permits for imported meat but damage to the beef industry had already been done.

One of the consequences of Canada’s import policy is that MGI, the second largest meat processing plant in Ontario, closed its doors several years ago because it couldn’t compete with the cheap off shore stream of beef. Canada now sends 41 per cent of its cows for slaughter to U.S. plants.

Roughly, 10 per cent of the Canadian beef herd and 23 per cent of the dairy herd need to be culled each year. As a consequence, almost half these cattle now have no place to go.