Richardson International confirmed to CTV News that its registration to ship canola to China has been cancelled, with the country citing quality concerns.
“That means that we’re no longer authorized to export Canadian canola seed to China from our terminals,” explained Jean-Marc Ruest, senior vice-president corporate affairs and general counsel for the Winnipeg-based agribusiness.
The company was informed by the Canadian government that it was told the reason for the suspension had to do with quality concerns relating to Canadian shipments of canola.
Ruest said the company’s review of these allegations determined they were “confused or unfounded.”
“I think this is such a significant issue, a significant step that’s been taken that it warrants involvement at the highest levels. I think at the ministerial and prime ministerial levels,” Ruest said.
Richardson’s suspension comes amid rising tensions between Canada and China. The two countries became ensnarled in a dispute following the Dec.1 arrest of Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer for Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies, in Vancouver. Meng’s arrest followed a request from the U.S. government, over allegations she bypassed U.S.-based sanctions on Iran while using a subsidiary. Canada has now begun the extradition process against Meng, while she is suing authorities over how she was detained.
China has also detained two Canadians since Dec. 10 and on Monday the country accused the two men of acting together to steal state secrets.
None of the allegations have been proven in court.
“In our view this is wider than a Richardson customer-specific type of issue. This is a Canada-China issue,” Ruest said.
“So we’re looking to and expect our government to take very strong action in response to protect the interests of Richardson and the Canadian agriculture sector generally, because we think it is much wider than just Richardson.”
Around 20 per cent of Canada’s canola is shipped to China, but Ruest said he doesn’t foresee that that this cancellation will bring about any job loss at Richardson. Instead, he notes, it will “unnecessarily” cause uncertainty among the company, its customers, and the industry as a whole.
“It’s obviously a very significant customer of Canada’s that’s no longer open for business. And so we need to find other outlets for the commodities that we handle and typically sell to China, in this case canola specifically,” he said.
Ruest said if there is in fact a quality control problem it will be resolved quickly, but if it’s a political issue “than it will take however long those issues take to resolve themselves.”
- With files from CTV Vancouver, The Canadian Press and CTV's Jill Macyshon.
