Since they challenged the Quebec government a year ago, the Saskatchewan government has finally won the appeal that will allow the sale and marketing of vegetable oil-based dairy products in the French-speaking province.
“During 2014, our government successfully challenged the agreement on internal trade to drop these restrictions,” said Agriculture Minister, Lyle Stewart. “We received an initial ruling in our favour in the spring and they appealed that.”
The decision regarding that appeal was handed down a couple of weeks ago, which ruled in Saskatchewan’s favour. Fortunately, Quebec had already begun making the changes to its Food Products Act to remove the barriers. The appeal panel’s decision simply cements that those preparations were necessary.
“Quebec has not allowed oil-based products to be sold such as margarines, coffee whiteners, and dessert toppings that can compete with their dairy industry,” said Stewart. “I’m not inside their heads, but the dairy industry is very significant in Quebec and I think their motive was to protect the dairy industry from oil-based products like I mentioned.”
Considering they already voluntarily started making changes to their food act, Stewart said they’re confident that Quebec will comply with the ruling. There shouldn’t be any issues between the Saskatchewan and Quebec governments.
However, despite the barriers being removed, that doesn’t mean Saskatchewan producers are completely ready to just dive into the Quebec market.
According to Stewart, the oilseed producers certainly have enough oilseeds to fill the market, but retail will still have to make some adjustments and changes in their warehouses.
“But where those opportunities exist, those changes will follow as a matter of course,” he said. “We’re very happy to have access to that market and I think oilseed producers will be pleased.”
At the moment, Stewart says they don’t have the numbers to quantify what these changes will mean to the oilseed sector. They’ll have to wait and see how the Quebec people will receive the products they hadn’t previously had access to.
