Usually when a piece of machinery breaks down there is a reason for it that you can hold in your hands.
When a bureaucracy shudders to a halt it’s not so easy to spot what part of the political machine is broken.
The current issue over a suspension of sales to the United States of PEI potatoes is a great example of what happens when paper forms and regulations take the place of common sense.
The evolution of trade involves creating regulations and safeguards so that products that travel up and down the continent and around the world are trustworthy.
Soybeans grown in South Dundas will hopefully not make anyone in Japan sick and an electric guitar made in California will not explode when a rock star in Belgium plugs it in.
All of these rules and regulations point to a global market that has agreed to a certain standard of excellence, and it works, until it doesn’t.
The recent dilemma over PEI potatoes is a good example of when due diligence, results in political mayhem and economic woes for farmers in Prince Edward Island.
The Canadian Encyclopedia describes potato wart as: “Potato Wart Disease, also called potato canker, is a fungal disease of potato sprouts, eyes and stolons. It does not affect roots. The disease is primarily a disease of kitchen gardens where potatoes are cropped continuously; it is spread through the distribution of contaminated soil and potatoes.”
The condition has a unique Canadian history. In North America, the disease was first detected in Newfoundland in 1909 by Dominion Botanist H. Güssow. As a result, the government of the day set out a policy in 1912 that did not allow for any Newfoundland soil to contaminate Canadian shores. This quarantine still exists today.
In 2000 the potato wart had found a way to immigrate to Prince Edward Island. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency went after it creating regulations, management plans and strict rules regarding what to do with the potato wart if it was discovered anywhere.
A potato beset with potato wart is not harmful to a person’s health if they eat that potato, but it does reduce the typical farmers yield and that that is never a good thing.
Last year two fields in PEI were found to have the potato wart. They were immediately shut down. The government, in an attempt to protect the global potato market which means so much to PEI, suspended the sale of all PEI potatoes to the United States, one of their huge markets. So for all of those regulations and safeguards have worked.
Months later with not a potato wart in sight the suspension is still in force and PEI farmers are starting to panic.
With no science to back them up the Americans are holding fast to the decision to forbid the sale of PEI potatoes in their market place even though it’s ok for PEI potatoes to zip across Canada to markets here.
It’s like you were arrested for something you were innocent of, and the police admits you are innocent, but unfortunately the paperwork has already been started so you will have to go to jail until the system realizes a mistake has been made.
There is nothing wrong with having regulations that protect countries from letting in something that might harm people or crops. However there should be a mechanism that kicks in when the issue has resolved itself and trade, in this case, the trade of potatoes from PEI to the United States can resume.
There must be a piece of paper somewhere in Washington or in Ottawa that has a box to be ticked off that declares all is well with our potatoes. Resolving the suspension does not seem to be that hard, but the solution is stuck in someone’s in-basket down south.
It has been suggested that the reluctance to agree to lift the suspension may be politically motivated.
If that is indeed the case, then there is no broken lever to fix or no potato wart now needing to be regulated. The wheels of government move slowly, and even with the best of intentions tends to run over the people they were trying to help.
Joseph Morin
