The strong comments were made following the decision of a U.S. judge to grant an injunction against the re-opening of the U.S. border to Canadian cattle under 30 months, a ruling in favor of protectionist group R-CAlF. The opening of the border was supposed to have taken place in March.

“I believe we need to send a strong message to the United States that opposition to the border opening is not based on science or good economics but rather on domestic trade protectionism,” John van Dongen wrote in a strongly worded letter to Andy Mitchell, federal minister of agriculture responsible for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and David Peterson, minister for international trade.

“Canadian beef is safe and does not present a health risk to Americans as confirmed by both the U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Animal Plant and Health Inspection Service. I am still confident reason will prevail, but urge Canada to stop the U.S. trans-shipments through Vancouver until that happens.”

About 11,000 cattle from Hawaii are shipped through the Port of Vancouver each year, where they are offloaded for a 15-day rest.

“It is difficult to explain the fairness of this when the U.S. earlier wouldn’t even let Canadian breeding cattle move through the U.S. to Mexico,” van Dongen said.