OTTAWA — Beijing’s recent decision to extend its probe into global beef imports may spell relief for suppliers who feared access to one of their fastest-growing markets was about to be curbed.

Not so for Canadian producers, who face a ban from mainland China’s beef market that has dragged on for years, and shows no sign of ending.

“If China would reopen the market for Canadian beef, that would fix everything for us,” said Jennifer Babcock, who leads government relations and international affairs at the Canadian Cattle Association. “There’s no reason for us to be shut out right now.”

The trade war between China and Canada intensified last week when Beijing slapped 75.8 per cent tariffs on Canadian canola seed. Combined with the 100 per cent duties on canola oil and meal that China imposed in March, the move effectively shuts the crop out of a market that imported $4.9 billion of Canada’s canola in 2024. Those levies, along with China’s tariffs on pork and seafood products, stem from anti-discrimination and anti-dumping probes that Beijing launched last year after Canada followed the U.S. in slapping steep levies on Chinese-made electric vehicles, steel and aluminum. The World Trade Organization has agreed to review disputes by both countries.

Meanwhile, another beef—over beef—remains on the backburner.

It began in December 2021, when Canada reported a case of atypical bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) on an Alberta farm. Atypical BSE is different from the classical form of BSE, or mad cow disease, which is often linked to contaminated cattle feed and can lead to the deadly neurodegenerative disorder Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans. Atypical BSE develops spontaneously and does not transmit to people. It is also rare. Canada has reported three cases since 1990. 

In May 2021, the World Organisation for Animal Health had recognized Canada’s BSE risk status as “negligible,” an upgrade from “controlled.” It had been a long road to get to that point. In 2003, a single case of mad cow disease in Alberta wreaked havoc as the world shut out Canadian cattle and beef. The crisis was estimated to have cost the industry, which exports about half its production, between $4.9 billion and $5.5 billion over three years.

The Alberta and federal governments both said they did not expect the 2021 report of a single case of atypical BSE to affect international trade. They were wrong.

China, which was Canada’s third-largest export market for beef—worth about $193 million per year—suspended shipments from Canada. So did South Korea and the Philippines. Those two countries removed their restrictions quickly, but nearly four years later, Canadian beef remains unwelcome in China.

Summaries of meetings of the WTO’s committee on sanitary and phytosanitary measures, which deals with trade-related health and safety issues, suggest Canada remains mystified—and exasperated—over how long it is taking to resolve the impasse.

“Canada informed the Committee that it had continuously tried to engage with and had responded to all requests from China, but neither scientific justification nor timeframes for the restoration of trade had been provided,” says the summary from March. “Noting the importance of basing (sanitary and phytosanitary) measures on international standards and avoiding discrimination, Canada added that it was considering all options to restore trade as bilateral efforts had not achieved resolution.” 

China, meanwhile, has maintained all along its prohibition relates to health concerns. It said it was still assessing the risk and would be ready to resume beef exports to China once it recognized Canada’s BSE risk remained negligible.

Even though China does not link the beef ban to other squabbles with Canada, Ottawa views it as more of the same. “Since 2018 Canadian agricultural exports have been increasingly subjected to arbitrary trade actions and non-tariff barriers by China … putting market access for Canadian agriculture, agri-food, and fish and seafood exports at risk and adding significant costs and uncertainty for Canadian exporters,” said a briefing document on Canada-China trade prepared for former agriculture minister Lawrence MacAulay in November 2024.

Now, China has paved the way for restrictions on beef imports from other countries—for more straightforwardly protectionist reasons.

On Dec. 27, Beijing launched a “safeguard investigation” into whether global beef imports are harming its own sector. A safeguard investigation allows a WTO member country to temporarily and non-arbitrarily restrict imports of a good if it can show that a surge of the product from foreign sources, even fairly traded, is causing “serious injury” to its domestic industry.

China was due to announce the results this month, but on Aug. 6 announced it was extending its probe until Nov. 26, citing the complexity of the investigation.

A Canadian government document from earlier this year noted the global scope of the probe, yet suggested it increased pressure on Canada’s efforts to regain access to China’s market.

“This investigation considers imports from all sources, not just from Canada,” said a summary from the federal Department of Agriculture of a Jan. 20 meeting of a deputy ministers’ committee on China. “Intelligence suggests this may be to relieve pressure on Chinese domestic industry rather than an attempt to close the market.” The document was released to The Logic in response to a request through the Access to Information Act.

The wider investigation is unrelated to the longstanding ban, but still poses a risk to Canadian beef producers and processors. It covers a period beginning June 1, 2019—more than two years before Beijing brought in its ban. Even if China ends the BSE-based restriction, it could limit Canadian beef anew through the results of its safeguard probe. The federal government has been participating in the study by China, which could end up having to compensate countries for losses linked to new import limits.

The federal documents note the safeguard investigation prompted the Canadian beef sector to raise the prospect of launching a formal dispute at the WTO. But Ottawa has not yet taken that step. “The Government of Canada is considering all options in consultation with Canadian stakeholders,” Charlotte MacLeod, a spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada, wrote Friday in an emailed statement. “Canada continues to raise this bilaterally with China at all levels,” she added.

Babcock said her association would support a WTO dispute over the BSE-related beef ban, but understands that Canada is fighting on many fronts. “We are ready to bring a challenge forward, but we are very aware of all the dynamics at play,” she said.

Meanwhile, the industry has been working hard to diversify. Babcock said it was able to move beef quickly to other Asian markets to make up some of the gap. That includes Japan, which is now the second-largest export destination for Canadian beef. Demand from Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines is also growing, she added, while Australia last month opened its borders to Canadian beef for the first time since 2003.

If Canada is more focused on the U.S. trade war right now, Babcock said, that is how it should be. “The beef sector is so integrated across Canada and the U.S. You’ll have a calf born in the U.S., then brought up to a Canadian feed lot, and then shipped back down to be processed in the U.S., or vice versa,” she said. “That really is the trading relationship that we are focused on right now and when we’re talking to the government, this is our number 1 priority.”