CBC News | May 26, 2003
CAMBRIDGE BAY, NUNAVUT - The government of Nunavut is lobbying for its muskox and caribou meat to be exempt from the U.S. import ban on Canadian meat.
The territory's department of sustainable development says the ban is unfair. It was put in place after a cow in Alberta tested positive for mad cow disease.
Rosemary Keenainak, the assistant deputy minister of sustainable development, says the muskox and caribou used for meat live on isolated islands.
She says they don't come into contact with cows and are not fed processed food.
"What is harvested up here in the north is not linked in any way, shape or form to the mad cow disease that has been occurring in Alberta," said Keenainak.
Brian Zawadski of the Nunavut Development Corporation said he first heard about the ban when a shipment of caribou meat from Kivalliq Arctic Foods was stopped at the American border on Thursday.
Kivalliq Arctic Foods, owned by the Nunavut Development Corporation, makes $400,000 a year selling muskox and caribou meat to Americans. Zawadski said the meat plant sells a third of its meat to the U.S.
"I hope there is no long-term damage to our product and to the product coming out of Canada as a whole," he said.
Keenainak said her ministry will ask the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to lobby on behalf of Nunavut's meat exporters.CBC News:
