Colombia purchased 56,000 tonnes of the crop in 2025 — the South American country’s first major purchase of Canadian barley in about a decade.

Peter Watts, managing director of the Canadian Malting Barley Technical Centre (CMBTC), said Colombia regularly purchased 50,000 to 100,000 tonnes of Canadian barley between 2000 and 2013.

Why Canada lost the market

Canada had a good trading relationship with Bavaria, the largest brewing company in the country. It buys virtually all the malting barley exported into Colombia.

Bavaria was purchased by SABMiller in 2005, which was in turn swallowed up by Anheuser-Busch InBev in 2016.

Watts speculates that the change in ownership resulted in morphing quality specifications. Canadian barley is high in protein and sometimes brewers are looking for something more moderate.

AB InBev also has notoriously strict specifications on tendering, including payment specifications. Some suppliers may not have wanted to meet those specifications.

Price was also likely a factor. Canadian barley was sold at a premium to competitors for many years.

The upshot was that purchases from Canada stopped for about a decade.

What brought Colombia back

About a year ago, Canadian barley prices started to fall as China resumed purchases from Australia after a lengthy trade spat. That pushed a lot of Canadian barley out of the Chinese market.

And then Canada harvested a bumper crop of barley in 2025. Farmers produced 9.73 million tonnes, a 19 per cent improvement over the previous year, putting even more downward pressure on prices.

“Prices have been a lot more competitive in the global market,” said Watts.

At the same time, French malting barley prices climbed higher due to a short crop in that key exporting nation.

Those events, combined with years of continued market development work, encouraged Colombia to reconsider Canadian supplies, and they were happy with that decision.

Watts and other members of Canada’s barley sector spent a week in Colombia in March meeting with Bavaria officials.

“We had a good visit with them,” he said.

“We expect that there will be continued interest from Colombia in buying Canadian malting barley going forward. They indicated they’d like that.”

Potential beyond Colombia

Bavaria also operates breweries in Chile and Peru, and its sister company, Cerveceria Nacional, does business in Ecuador. Bavaria officials indicated there may be opportunities to use Canadian malting barley in those countries as well.

However, Watts pointed out that those countries are located on the west side of South America and are more likely to import product from Australia and Argentina.

Watts said Latin American markets, including Mexico, probably account for about one million tonnes of annual malting barley demand.

If Canada can capture one-quarter of that demand, it would be substantial.

The good news is that Latin America’s beer market remains relatively strong compared to other regions of the world where it is sagging.

Bavaria just built a brand-new brewery in Colombia that added 10 per cent to the company’s annual production there.

Watts said the two malting plants he visited while in Colombia were “world class” facilities that were clean and extraordinarily efficient.

Variety trials ahead

CMBTC will continue working with Bavaria’s technical team to evaluate newer Canadian malting barley varieties.

AAC Connect and CDC Fraser have been pilot tested and have commercial trials pending.

Evaluation of CDC Churchill will soon be underway. Watts believes it will be a good fit because Bavaria likes CDC Copeland, which is a lower enzyme variety like Churchill.

Watts said CMBTC will continue providing Bavaria with quality and performance data on new varieties as well as annual crop quality and production data.

And Bavaria officials will continue attending CMBTC’s training courses at its facility in Winnipeg.

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While nitrogen fertilizer and diesel fuel are the big-ticket items getting the most attention, the cost increases will extend much further.

Farmers are considering various strategies to minimize the economic damage for this year and the years to come.

Fortunately, farmers in Western Canada had most of their nitrogen fertilizer locked in ahead of the dramatic escalation caused by the war in the Middle East. What isn’t widely appreciated is the war’s impact on other fertilizer types, including phosphate.

Breaking down fertilizer impacts

Mario Gaudet, a senior account manager with Alberta-based BiziSul, which supplies elemental sulfur, used a recent webinar hosted by Dan Aberhart to explain the sources of sulfur and the role it plays in all sorts of manufactured products.

Sulfur is a byproduct of oil refining, which accounts for 80 per cent of the world supply. About 40 per cent comes from the Middle East, and, like nitrogen, was blocked for weeks at the Strait of Hormuz.

Gaudet says that over the last year-and-a-half, the price of elemental sulfur has increased from US$70 per tonne to around $580.

Sulfur is needed to produce sulfuric acid used in battery production as well as the refining of lithium and many other metals. Sulfuric acid is also a necessary ingredient to turn phosphate rock into phosphate fertilizer.

Monoammonium phosphate, 11-52-0, was already expensive and hasn’t escalated like nitrogen. However, with the high cost of sulfur and the high cost of the nitrogen component in the fertilizer, it’s difficult to imagine MAP prices coming down anytime soon.

Nitrogen strategies

What should the strategy be next summer and fall if the price of urea is still $1,000 or more per tonne? Should you plan to stock up for 2027? Will the ceasefire hold? Will fertilizer manufacturing and distribution be catching up?

Nitrogen is usually less expensive in the summer and fall.

While nitrogen stabilizers cost money, more producers might now consider using a stabilizer and spreading fertilizer in the fall.

The cost of a stabilizer is often relatively small compared to the usual price increase ahead of spring. Applying in the fall also means you don’t have to store the product.

While producers are used to pricing fertilizer in advance of seeding and most have a significant amount of on-farm storage, diesel storage is a mixed bag.

Some producers have significant storage and try to time purchases to save money. Others just get regular bulk deliveries as needed.

While nitrogen tends to follow a predictable price pattern most years, diesel fuel would seem to be more erratic.

However, following the onset of the war, a spike in prices would have been a reasonable expectation. Those with the storage to stock up saved a lot of money.

Another advantage to having extensive diesel fuel storage is the ability to obtain a lower price for taking an entire tanker load at a time. Of course, buying a large amount at the wrong time would lock in an even-larger loss.

The high cost of petroleum will manifest itself in the prices for crop protection products.

Yes, many chemistries are off patent and generics have decreased price levels, but it’s now more expensive to manufacture all petroleum-based products. Even the plastic jugs cost more. Buying in advance was a good strategy.

With the high input costs and outlook for compressed margins, producers are unlikely to be bullish on equipment upgrades. That’s one area where they can exercise more discretion.

Kevin Hursh is an agricultural journalist, consultant and farmer. He can be reached by email at kevin@hursh.ca.

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In opening remarks, chair Rick Préjet said 2025 had been marked by “uncertainty, successes and optimism,” while highlighting the importance of export markets.

Those themes carried through panel discussions led by general manager Cam Dahl, who said Manitoba is particularly exposed because of its dependence on export markets.

“Trade really has become a key focus for Manitoba Pork,” he said, noting about 90 per cent of Manitoba production is exported either as live animals or pork products.

The discussion also swirled around tariffs and the increasingly protectionist tone of global trade. Canadian Pork Council executive director Steven Heckbert noted voluntary country-of-origin labelling (vCOOL) was introduced by Democrats, adding that both major U.S. parties have been moving in the same direction.

“We’re fighting a headwind of increased protectionism,” he said.

Trade concerns were also explored in a one-on-one discussion with Manitoba’s senior representative to the U.S., Richard Madan, who said that despite the rhetoric, there is still broad bipartisan support for smooth trade relations in agricultural states.

“Republicans, Democrats and stakeholders all understand the importance of integrated supply chains, and how Canada is part of a strong food supply system,” he said.

Biosecurity concerns also remain front and centre

Biosecurity was the other major focus. Speakers pointed to African swine fever preparedness, ongoing PED control efforts, wild pig eradication and the continued risk posed by senecavirus A. Recent low disease levels in Manitoba were attributed to stronger biosecurity, surveillance and coordination across the sector.

Dahl said protecting the sector depends in part on decisions made at the farm level.

“Don’t ship sick animals,” he said. “It’s not just your farm that you put at risk. It’s the entire Manitoba pork sector.”

The meeting also included discussion of Manitoba Pork’s public outreach and right-to-farm efforts. On the governance side, Margaret Rempel retired as board member at large and was replaced by Harv Toews.

Full coverage of the Manitoba Pork AGM will appear in the next edition of the Manitoba Co-operator.

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After a year marked with volatility, trade disputes and continued erosion of faith in rules based trade, panelists at the Canadian Crops Conference, held in Toronto in March, explained challenges in the international trade order and what Canada can do to improve its standing.

How can Canada stand out in a globalized market?

“The rest of the world, the rest of the sectors of the global economy, are finally getting to know what it felt like to be agriculture for a number of years,” said Jeff Mahon, director of StrategyCorp.

He pointed to non-tariff barriers and the weaponization of trade.

Canada has sought to overcome challenges through diversification, but Mahon said this may not be as easy as some are making it out to be.

“This whole movement is driven by, you know, roughly 75 per cent of our exports going to the United States. But the last I checked, Canadian agriculture is already pretty diversified,” he said.

“Telling Canadian agriculture it needs to diversify further is like telling a cayenne pepper it needs to be spicy.”

The questions are — how Canada can grow its market share and how reliant Canada should be on bigger markets like China and India. Mahon said it will be important to recognize there may not be alternatives to those markets and Canada will likely need to continue trading in both.

Win-win thinking

In a global market currently favouring buyers, Mahon said Canada may need to find new strategies to stand out.

“In some cases, that might mean selling more processed or value-added goods,” He said. “In other cases, particularly when we’re looking at new markets in developing countries, we might want to think about bringing a bigger Canadian value proposition to them,” he said.

For example, instead of just offering commodities, Canaa can offer access to a network of capability and research.

This is already happening — for example, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s recent trip to India saw the promise of a Canada-India pulse research centre.

“Now you’re using empathy,” Mahon said. “You’re going to a developing country, India, and you’re saying, ‘what do you need from us?’”

In a country like India, where nutritional security is a concern, Mahon said this type of win-win-thinking could be part of Canada’s strength as a partner.

He added that he’d heard a former Indonesian ambassador suggest Canada could help countries build processing capacity, leading to “mandatory supply chains” with Canadian exports at the centre.

Mahon said he would like to see governments rephrase requests to industry to diversify and rather ask what the industry needs to grow market share.

“Diversification and growing exports isn’t going to work unless Canada fixes some of the supply side problems,” he said.

These may not be entirely an industry issue.

“The government might want to look in the mirror a little bit more if it wants to be able to figure out how to help grow agricultural exports.”

Barriers within international trade

One barrier for Canadian agri-food trade in the EU has been the challenge of adapting to regulatory frameworks. The effects of European policies, like the Green Deal, Farm to Fork strategy, can sometimes be felt in Canada.

For example, The European Commission has proposed a bill that would effectively set pesticide tolerances at zero on imported grains, oilseeds, pulses and other agricultural commodities if those pesticides haven’t been approved for use in the EU.

The EU isn’t a primary destination for Canadian grain, oilseeds and pulses, but exports can be significant some years.

European politicians have argued that this levels the playing field so growers outside of Europe don’t have a competative advantage.

The Canadian government is lobbying for predictability said Greg MacDonald, a counsellor with the Mission of Canada to the EU.

Prime Minister Mark Carney is seen as a close friend in many countries, and now the government is attempting to leverage that, MacDonald said.

People shouldn’t think the EU is “closed for business on agriculture trade,” he added.

MacDonald suggested Canada could continue to work with the EU on regulatory alignment.

“How do we make the regulatory frameworks work for Canada with the broad political overview we have that we’re the trusted and reliable partner, and the EU calls us and asks, how can Canada provide product X?”

A loss of faith in rules-based trade

The past year has also seen attacks on the role of rules-based trade.

Edwini Kessie, director of the agriculture and commodities division at the World Trade Organization (WTO) said he felt the core principles of his organization are “under attack.”

He said the non-discrimination principle and the security and predictability of market access have come into question for some.

“These have been the binding core principles of the WTO, but I think increasingly there are questions as to the effectiveness of the WTO rules in creating a level playing field,” Kessie said.

“We see in the EU specifically, regulatory and policy developments that may be shifting away from some core tenants of WTO rules, which adds to uncertainty in the grains and oilseeds trade,” MacDonald said.

Kessie said the solution is not for the global trade system to turn its back on the existing rules and encouraged stakeholders not to give up on the WTO.

“There are changes which have to be made,” he said. “And I do hope that the WTO members will come together and effect the real changes, which will strengthen the rules-based multilateral trading system.”

“The current prosperity that we are witnessing the world is because of the rules-based system,” he said, “so we need to strengthen it.”

WTO ministerial talks in Yaounde, Camaroon at the end of March struggled to make headway on questions of reform and ultimately broke down after the group could not agree on renewing a moratorium on duties for electronic transmissions like digital streaming.

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The 2026 FCC Food and Beverage Report states sales among food and beverage manufacturers are predicted to rise by 0.8 per cent while volumes fall by 0.7 per cent, the fourth straight year of decline. It notes sales growth will likely be driven by higher prices, not higher consumption.

WHY IT MATTERS: With trade tensions still disrupting global supply, prices could fluctuate this year, affecting consumers’ choices.

FCC chief economist Craig Johnston said this disparity speaks to the issue of consumer purchasing power.

“Higher food prices over the past several years are really weighing on households’ budgets,” he said in an interview. “They’re making more cost-conscious decisions.”

“This is actually a headwind for consumption and a headwind for volumes.”

He said any upstream changes will no doubt filter down to Canadian producers. Some challenges are shared across sectors.

“When we think about common elements, you can think about the tariffs, the elevated input costs, generally,” he said.

Margins are tight across the sector, including for farmers.

“We’re not seeing massive improvements on margins within the food and beverage manufacturing sector to pre-COVID levels, and we’re not necessarily seeing that filter through to a broad-based increase in margins for primary ag.”

“The industry in general is still going through this adjustment period” he said, “and we do expect that to continue to 2026.”

Trade tensions still a factor

Canada will continue to grapple with trade uncertainty this year, including the recent instability caused by the conflict in the Middle East.

Forecasts for costs of goods in the Food and Beverage Report were made before the crisis, “meaning that if the commodity price surge persists beyond just a few months, there would be upside risks to those estimates.”

FCC had expected pressures on some inputs, such as cattle and hogs, to ease from 2025 highs, but surging energy prices due to the conflict make that less likely.

Costs of production up

Production costs for food and beverage manufacturers increased by two per cent in 2025, driven mostly by raw material costs.

“The increase in raw material costs was driven by disruptions that constrained availability and raised prices,” the report states.

“Some examples from 2025 include avian influenza impacts on poultry … tariffs that increased the cost of imported aluminum packaging and historically low cattle herd sizes across North America.”

Costs across sectors

The report also breaks down costs associated with sub-sectors of food and beverage processing.

In grain and oilseed milling, sales were uneven in 2025 but improved by the fourth quarter. 2026 shows signs of a rebound in sales and volumes.

Large carryover of canola stocks is expected to keep prices under pressure in 2026. Canola prices are expected to fall by 3.1 per cent in 2026.

The report suggested demand for Canadian maple syrup and honey has continued to increase in the global market.

In the dairy sector, 2026 will likely see a 3.6 per cent increase of product manufacturing sales over 2025. Processors are also expected to pass along costs from the producer price increase for unprocessed milk to consumers.

In the meat manufacturing sector, FCC forecasts sales up 1.6 per cent and volumes down by 5.6 per cent.

Tight supplies of live animals, due largely to disease outbreaks, drove prices up in 2025. According to the report, “2026 will likely see another year where price, not volume, drives sales upward.”

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With agriculture and intellectual property both on the agenda at the WTO’s 14th ministerial conference (MC14), running March 26 to 29 at Yaoundé in Cameroon, CropLife International on March 25 called on WTO member governments to “uphold agricultural resilience and productivity and prevent unnecessary trade barriers.”

That said, reform of the WTO itself, particularly its dispute settlement system is a priority on the MC14 agenda, the WTO said in a separate release earlier this month.

“The WTO has long spoken of unfinished negotiations and long-overdue reform, yet too often our promises have outpaced our results,” WTO director-general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said. “This conference must demonstrate that this time is different.”

The multilateral, rules-based trading system the WTO represents “plays a critical role in advancing global food security,” said CropLife International CEO Emily Rees said in a release. The conference “provides an opportunity to reaffirm the core principles on which the WTO was built.”

Brussels-based CropLife, in a brief filed with the WTO, laid out recommendations for the ministerial conference in areas where it says WTO members “can act to promote fair, sustainable and innovative agricultural trade,” including:

• sanitary and phytosanitary complaint approaches that support food security through supply chain resilience;
• protections under the WTO agreement on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPS), and
• sustainable agricultural development.

Concerns around sanitary, phytosanitary issues

CropLife called on the WTO to “uphold risk-based approaches” as the foundation for sanitary and phytosanitary measures keeping with the WTO’s agreement. It also would see reinforcement of the Codex Alimentarius — the standards for international food safety — together with the International Plant Protection Convention and World Organization for Animal Health, as “the reference international standard-setting bodies for food safety, plant health, and animal health.”

It called on WTO members to work to resolve outstanding trade concerns around sanitary and phytosanitary issues — especially those related to pesticide maximum residue levels and to avoid such problems at the outset.

CropLife also asked member countries to safeguard the WTO’s TRIPS agreement to drive “agricultural innovation and sustainable growth” and see that patent protection, plant variety rights, regulatory data protection and other IP mechanisms are maintained and strengthened.

As for sustainable development, CropLife called on member countries to seek “inclusive, outcome-focused, and science-based approaches that balance economic, social and environmental objectives, while avoiding unnecessary barriers to trade or innovation.”

It also urged members to avoid “one-size-fits-all or prescriptive requirements” so there’s flexibility for regional approaches that fit local conditions. Member countries’ governments should also not impose sustainability policies on other jurisdictions.

Ag trade

According to WTO briefing notes prepared for MC14, since member countries began negotiations on agriculture in 2000, the value of ag trade has grown to US$1.494 trillion in 2024, from about US$300 billion.

The average applied tariff on agricultural goods, including trade preferences, dropped from 13 per cent in 2005 to 5.7 per cent in 2023, the WTO said, but added that ag and food markets “remain highly distorted,” with support to individual producers estimated at about US$624 billion per year on average in the 2022-24 period.

Recently, “new tensions related to trade and other issues have complicated the challenge of making progress,” the WTO said.

Leading up to MC14, member countries have tabled several submissions on agriculture, trade and food security. These aim to provide guidance on “how to revitalize the agriculture negotiations and overcome (a) persisting stalemate.”

Earlier this month the chair of the agriculture negotiating body, Pakistan’s Ali Sarfraz Hussain, tabled a draft text reflecting members’ submissions.

Most members indicate the text could serve as a basis for further discussion, the WTO said, but “a small number of members stated that they were unable to support it in its current form.”

A call to overhaul trade

On the opening day of meetings, WTO chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala called on countries to overhaul global trade rules, telling them the old world order had gone for good, following a year of turmoil sparked by U.S. tariffs and wider geopolitical tensions.

Okonjo-Iweala set out a list of problems facing the World Trade Organization – including the paralysis of its dispute-settlement mechanism.

“The world order and multilateral system we used to know has irrevocably changed. We will not get it back … We must look to the future,” the WTO Director-General said.

Ahead of the session, some diplomats and trade officials warned that without an agreement on reforms, countries could start abandoning the ideal of a rules-based global trade system, and set their own regulations.

Okonjo-Iweala said the body’s problems over decision-making needed to be tackled. Its current consensus-based model has been regularly stalled by objections from some countries. Some delegates are pushing for the organization to let groups of members form agreements.

She also said there was a lack of transparency over which countries were using subsidies.

“Lack of transparency leads to lack of trust, and that breeds suspicions of unfairness and anti-competitive behaviours,” Okonjo-Iweala told delegates.

This contributed to a “vicious cycle” of mistrust which was holding back members from agreeing new rules and reforms, she added.

The U.S. supports reforms but is resisting a detailed work plan, while the EU, Britain, and China back one, internal reform documents seen by Reuters show.

—with files from Reuters

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WHY IT MATTERS: Conversations between Canadian and American agriculture groups could help set a tone ahead of the CUSMA review this summer.

Hoekstra spoke at the Canadian Crops Convention in Toronto on March 12.

He said tariffs are likely to stay on as cost of doing business in the American market. Canada should “do everything they can to get into the lowest tariff buckets.”

“You can make compelling cases for us to do business with Canada and Canada to get the lowest tariffs of any trading partner in the world,” Hoekstra said.

U.S. and Canadian businesses both need to advocate for that relationship.

Cross-border relationships

Some in the Canadian agriculture sector say that advocacy is already underway.

Michael Harvey, executive director of the Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance said many Canadians have been advocating for cross-border business relationships. Last fall, CAFTA led a trade mission to Washington D.C. involving 12 national industry groups. The group’s goal was to highlight the importance of renewing the Canada-U.S. Mexico Agreement.

Pierre Petelle, CEO of CropLife Canada, said he has seen U.S. farm groups openly support CUSMA over the last six months — something not common in the early days of the second Trump presidency.

“That puts us in a much, much better position,” he said.

Canada shouldn’t overestimate its value: Hoekstra

When negotiating trade, Hoekstra said Canada must not overestimate its value to the American market.

“We don’t wake up in the morning worried about Canada,” he said. “You don’t find Americans advocating … ‘boycott Canadian products.”

“When you walk into the negotiating team, or you get on TV and you say, ‘America needs our fill-in-the-blank,’ whatever commodity you’re talking about, you’re going to get a certain kind of response,” Hoekstra said.

“Because for just about everything that you bring in, it’s kind of like, ‘no, we really don’t.’”

The U.S. has done a good job of diversifying its markets and cultivating long-term relationships said Darcy Pawlik, executive director of the Wheat Growers Association. This gives some truth to the idea it doesn’t need Canadian imports.

“They’ve done the diversification of their procurement already,” Pawlik said. “Canada, we have really not carried the ball in a mature way, from a trade perspective internationally, from diversifying markets.”

Canada may have some commodities American need, but Pawlik said in many cases it has found other options.

‘We should always aim for free trade’

Hoekstra suggested pitching why doing business with Canada is a “phenomenal deal” for the United States.

“You will get a much different response in Washington than coming in and saying, ‘you absolutely need our stuff.’”

A compelling case could land Canada in the lowest tariff bucket, the ambassador said.

Being in the lowest bucket shouldn’t be Canada’s goal, Pawlik said.

“We need to always aim for zero-tariff,” he said. “We should always aim for free trade.”

“If there’s some points of negotiation that the Canadian government just can’t find a way to work together on and we end up in that lowest tariff bucket, then so be it. But we should never start from a place of being OK with some tariffs. We’ve got to aim for zero.”

Integration of supply chains a key bargaining point

Entering negotiations with a “we have what you need” approach could indeed be harmful, as it will only upset Trump and his administration said Patrick Leblond, a professor at the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, in an email to Glacier FarmMedia.

However, the U.S. is not entirely self-sufficient.

“Yes, Canada has some of what the U.S. needs, but we’re not the only ones,” Leblond wrote, adding the U.S. has more leverage than Canada on this issue.

Petelle said it may be important to consider the integration of Canada-U.S. supply chains as opposed to what goods one country needs over the other.

Whether crop protection products and seed, or processing and feed, the supply chain is “extremely integrated,” he said.

In the seed and crop protection sector, Canada probably needs the U.S. more than it needs Canada, Petelle said.

“We import a lot of our seed directly from the U.S. and other regions. A lot of the manufacturing of crop protection is done in the U.S. … so we’re pretty reliant on the input side for seed and crop protection.”

Canada and the U.S. “really produce food together,” Harvey said citing examples of beef crossing the border to be processed and Canadian wheat going to an American plant before being sent back to Canada.

“We’ve really got this deeply integrated production model, and it would be very negative for American interests for that model to be … gummed up,” he said.

American agri-food sector on board with CUSMA

“I think the most important thing is to have American interests who are in favor of the relationship,” Harvey said, “we’re seeing it really clearly that the American agri-food sector is in favor of continuing the treaty.”

In February, 40 American agricultural organizations formed a coalition to support CUSMA. Nearly 100 Canadian groups made a similar plea in December.

Petelle said this alignment between American and Canadian groups is a positive signal and could mean the beginnings of good negotiations between the two countries.

Despite his assertion there will always be a cost of entry in the American market, Hoekstra said the U.S. is interested in renewing CUSMA.

Pawlik said Canadian commodity groups should start talking with their U.S. counterparts ahead of the CUSMA review this summer.

“Wheat organizations talk to the wheat organizations, you know, and soybeans talk to soybeans… so that when they get to the negotiating floor, they can say, ‘hey, no problem. We’ve actually got industry leading these conversations. We’re figuring out ways to get along.’”

‘Get back to the table’

Hoekstra said negotiations around the trade agreement have been stalled by headwinds from Canada. He said there “hasn’t been a substantive discussion since the end of October” between the two countries.

Petelle said he saw things differently.

“It was interesting to hear the ambassador characterize it as ‘four months lost,’” he said. “Last time I checked, it was the U.S. that broke off the discussions.”

“We’ve had several months of nothing really moving, but I think that decision was theirs last fall,” he continued. “So, the first thing is to get back to the table and start having serious conversations, rather than through the media or through public statements by ambassadors and others.”

Pawlik said many Canadians would do well to have a better understanding of CUSMA and how tightly connected the two countries really are.

“The one thing that we continue to forget is that we are allies, right?” he said. “(We should) treat each other with maybe a little bit more respect than what we’ve been seeing to date, and that should be encouraged amongst all Canadians.”

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“In response to a formal request from the Canadian Association of Vegetable Growers and Processors, the government has directed the Canadian International Trade Tribunal to conduct an inquiry,” federal finance minister François-Philippe Champagne said in a March 13 news release.

A statement via Ottawa government relations consulting firm Maple Leaf Strategies bills the association as “the voice of Canadian vegetable growers, harvesters, employees and processors from coast to coast to coast, working to protect and strengthen the sector from farm to consumer.”

The CITT will have 180 days to decide if imports of frozen and canned vegetables are harming or threatening to cause harm to domestic growers and processors. If so, it will propose remedies to the federal government.

It has also been asked to consider impacts to food affordability and security for Canadians, the news release said.

The CITT, in a separate release March 16, confirmed it has launched the inquiry as requested and will report back to Champagne by Sept. 9.

In its notice of inquiry, the CITT said anyone wanting to make submissions to the tribunal on this matter must file notice by April 2 of their intent to do so, and it will hold its hearing on the inquiry in Ottawa starting June 15.

In an order in council, the government said that it appears importation of increased quantities of vegetables is a result of obligations under the World Trade Organization Agreement and “unforeseen developments in global trade.”

These have led some WTO members to restrict imports of vegetables into their markets, which has led those goods to be diverted into Canada.

In 2024, 55 per cent of Canadian fruit and vegetable preserving and specialty food were imported, according to Farm Credit Canada’s 2025 food and beverage report. That category includes frozen and canned vegetables and fruit, pickling and drying.

The Canadian Association of Vegetable Growers and Processors, in its separate statement, described the government’s move as “an important first step,” saying the domestic frozen and canned vegetable sector “has been facing a sudden surge of low-priced imports that is disrupting the Canadian market. Temporary, rules-based safeguard measures will restore fair competition and allow Canadian growers and processors to compete on equal terms.”

Such measures, it said, “will help stabilize supply chains that retailers and consumers depend on.”

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That’s what speakers said during the Northern Transport Conference in Winnipeg from Feb. 19-20.

WHY IT MATTERS: Giving new life to the Port of Churchill would offer a closer export route for Prairie agriculture commodities.

Churchill, and the concept of an Arctic trade corridor, has enjoyed a resurgence of interest and investment, particularly as tensions with the United States and domestic calls for trade diversification have picked up steam.

Headlines mentioning the port in the last few years have featured a long line of funding commitments, memorandums of understanding, along with industry and community partnership announcements to expand the scope of the port. That’s contrasted with the previous decade, which featured years of stalled upgrades, ownership change and service disruptions.

The push now is for what has been dubbed the “Port of Churchill Plus,” a multi-pronged project that ranges from upgrading the rail line, moving energy products to tidewater and developing an all-weather road to Churchill and northern communities, and opening up the Arctic trade hub to year-round shipping — bolstered both by conversations around ice breakers and research that has noted longer ice-free windows on Hudson Bay.

Chris Avery, president and CEO of Arctic Gateway Group, which owns the port and the rail line servicing it, outlined that plan during the recent Winnipeg event.

Wheat and the Port of Churchill

Churchill once handled significant grain volumes during the era of the Canadian Wheat Board’s single desk marketing. Back then, wheat accounted for roughly 90 per cent of port traffic and annual shipments peaked at more than 600,000 tonnes.

Those volumes declined sharply after the end of the single desk and the subsequent rail disruptions.

In 2017, flooding caused critical damage to the rail line, sparking a halt in service and months of drama with then-owner OmniTrax, an American company. The line was sold to Arctic Gateway Group the following year.

Recent messaging around the port has focused on diversification beyond grain.

Rail freight upgrades needed

While the railway is now in good condition, following extensive repairs and lengthy hiatus in service starting in 2021, Avery noted it cannot carry the same weights as lines serving Vancouver or Montreal. Those corridors can handle 286,000 pounds gross weight per car, while the line to Churchill can carry 268,000 pounds.

“We do need to upgrade the rail line to carry heavier cars,” said Avery.

The difference stems from investment decisions made decades ago. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Candian National and Canadian Pacific (now Canadian Pacific Kansas City) upgraded their main lines to handle heavier cars, while the then-owners of the Hudson Bay Railway did not.

“We do need to upgrade the rail line to carry heavier cars.”

Chris Avery, Arctic Gateway Group

“That roughly seven per cent difference is critical when optimizing supply chains and distribution,” Avery said. “Our customers tell us they need the same level of consistency so they don’t have to plan differently for Churchill than they do for Vancouver, Prince Rupert or Thunder Bay.”

He acknowledged that any expansion will depend on compatibility and collaboration with Canada’s major railways.

“We need to partner with CN and CPKC,” he said. “The duopoly railway system in Canada owns the national infrastructure and must work with us to develop this port. That partnership is required.”

Ice breakers necessary

On the marine side, the Port of Churchill currently operates about four months of the year. However, Arctic Gateway Group has commissioned University of Manitoba researchers to assess how climate change is affecting the shipping season in Hudson Bay.

“Based on the data gathered and observed climate trends, they tell us the sea lanes can already be open for up to six months of the year without icebreakers,” Avery said.

Arctic Gateway Group is also partnering with Canadian shipping company Fednav for a study to determine logistics of turning the port into a year-round operation. That study will clarify operational requirements and allow the company to move forward with impact assessments and Indigenous consultation.

Another speaker, James Bond, director of the Icebreaker Center of Excellence at Davie Shipbuilding, also talked year-round shipping. While Hudson Bay has lost significant ice thickness over the past two decades and fall increasingly sees open-water conditions, Bond said late winter and spring remain more challenging.

“In other words, April and May could be problematic without assistance,” Bond said.

He said vessels built to what is known as Polar Class 6 — similar to ships operating in the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe — could handle Hudson Bay conditions for much of the year under recent averages. However, shoulder months would likely require icebreaker escort.

Upgrading to a stronger Polar Class 5 vessel would provide more flexibility, but that added strength means higher construction and operating costs. Using icebreaker escort during the shoulder months can extend the operating season, but that too adds expense.

Avery said determining whether year-round shipping is, in fact, feasible will require detailed operational planning before any regulatory steps are taken.

“You can’t take shortcuts. You have to do the proper work,” he said. “But this is the starting point. Before assessing impacts, you need to understand what the operational plan looks like.”

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Speaking on Thursday at the Canadian Crops Convention in Toronto, he said the U.S. believes CUSMA, known as USMCA in the U.S., has worked well but there have been no “substantive” talks with Canada since October.

The Canadian minister responsible for Canada-U.S. trade met with his counterpart, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, last week.

“I think we want to get to an agreement, but we are facing some headwinds in the negotiations,” Hoekstra said, citing a lack of “substantive” discussions since October.

Hoekstra said:

• Canada should do everything it can to get into the lowest tariff buckets.
• The U.S. is looking for coalitions with countries that will make sure that if there are trade agreements, then the non-tariff trade barriers are removed.
• U.S. President Donald Trump has said there will be some tariff for getting access to the U.S. market so the Canadian government and businesses should make the case why it is beneficial for the U.S. to do business with Canada at the lowest tariff rate.
• Canada and the U.S. can also work more closely on energy. The U.S. already imports a lot of oil and natural gas from Canada, the U.S. processes much of this energy, and it would want to expand the partnership.
• Canada should also build a stockpile of critical minerals in Canada or the U.S. to use during emergencies. Canada has many critical minerals and it should develop a full supply chain to become an ideal partner for the U.S.

The office of the Canadian Minister Dominic LeBlanc, who is responsible for Canada-U.S. trade, said that
Canada remains committed to establishing a new economic and security relationship with the United States that will deliver for workers and businesses on both sides of the border.

“The Minister looks forward to further engagement with his American and Mexican counterparts over the coming months as we undertake the trilateral and bilateral review of the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement.”

— Additional reporting by Promit Mukherjee in Ottawa

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