Russia puts Ukrainian President Zelenskyy on its wanted list
Russia has put Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on its wanted list, Russian state media reported Saturday, citing the interior ministry’s database.
Another cargo jet laden with European infant formula will arrive Wednesday in the United States as the White House scrambles to ease a debilitating shortage -- a response some fear could lead to even emptier shelves in Canada as well.
Canada depends on U.S. producers for its own supply of formula, and with the Biden administration again using emergency wartime measures to meet the moment, trade and food security experts alike are worried about the knock-on effects.
And while the shutdown in February of a key manufacturing facility in Michigan catalyzed the crisis, those same experts say its foundations lie in how both countries have jealously defended their dairy sectors in an era of managed trade.
"I was always concerned from Day 1 about the situation," said Sylvain Charlebois, a professor of management and food security expert at the School of Public Administration at Dalhousie University in Halifax.
"And I actually think that the White House is much more proactive than Ottawa is in terms of trying to actually move products from Europe to North America."
Health Canada has already issued approvals for the use of European formula in Canada, but the government has not yet taken any steps to expedite getting those products onto Canadian soil, he added.
Charlebois said the only lasting fix will be for production to resume at Abbott Nutrition's massive facility in Sturgis, Mich., one of the largest in the country, which has been idle since February amid concerns about bacterial contamination.
The company expects the plant to be operating again within two weeks, but warns it will take up to two months before its output is fully back on store shelves.
"Once that happens, well, I think that the American market will be prioritized over the Canadian one for sure. It's going to take a while before Canada gets out of this mess," Charlebois said.
The roots of that mess -- which Prime Minister Justin Trudeau suggested Tuesday is not as bad as headlines might suggest -- can be traced to a persistent strain of U.S. protectionism, interlaced with Canada's own jealous guardianship of domestic markets.
"This is fundamentally a dairy product, and so it's caught up in the whole ugly mix of supply management, and the whole ugly mix of U.S. dairy export politics," said Eric Miller, a Canada-U.S. expert and president of the D.C.-based Rideau Potomac Strategy Group.
When the two countries sat down in 2017 to negotiate what became the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, then-president Donald Trump was determined to win wider access to Canada's dairy market while also keeping supply-managed Canadian rivals at bay.
"The primary goal of the U.S. on USMCA when it came to dairy in general was to ensure more market access for U.S. products into Canada, and to ensure minimal to no competition from Canadian products in the U.S. or in third markets," Miller said.
Canada ultimately made relatively modest concessions in the deal, known north of the border as CUSMA, lifting import tariffs on the equivalent of about 3.6 per cent of the Canadian market.
And while Canada is home to a major infant formula plant in Kingston, Ont., it is a Chinese-owned facility that sends 100 per cent of its output overseas for domestic use in China -- one that runs on Canadian labour and subsidized dairy products.
"The cow milk, as it is in the U.S., it's partially subsidized -- that makes things even worse," Charlebois said. "The plant itself was subsidized by the Canadian taxpayers as well."
Brian Deese, director of the White House National Economic Council, acknowledged in interviews over the weekend that the formula market in the U.S. is dominated and controlled by only a handful of major players.
Expansion is unlikely to happen in either country: a steadily declining birthrate across North America means it's not exactly a growth market, and trade restrictions make it all but impossible to sell overseas.
"It's not free and open trade, it's managed trade," said Adam Taylor, founder of Export Action Global, an international trade consulting firm.
"I'm a free trader, obviously. Free and open trade is the best way to ensure a lot of these products remain plentiful to everybody. You can add it to the list of things we're now seeing in real time that there's a shortage of."
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden's "Operation Fly Formula" is proceeding apace; the first shipment arrived Sunday in Indianapolis, while Jill Biden, the first lady, is scheduled to meet the next arrival Wednesday at Dulles International Airport.
Biden has also invoked the Defense Production Act, a 1950s-era law passed at the outset of the Korean War that's been getting a workout since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, to ensure U.S. manufacturers have expedited access to necessary ingredients and materials.
Given the expense and effort to date, not to mention the obvious political ramifications with midterm elections looming in November, don't expect the U.S. to be anxious to share, Miller suggested.
"When the U.S. invokes the DPA, they're not going to want to see 30 per cent of their supply going north of the border."
To hear Trudeau tell it, it may all be moot: Canada has been monitoring supplies and "working closely" with the U.S. to make sure there is enough to go around, he said Tuesday in Vancouver.
"The reality is, we're still looking like we're fine on baby formula," Trudeau said.
"There are a few challenges around some more specialized formulas for particularly vulnerable kids, but we are confident that the work that we're doing to secure supply from elsewhere, and to ensure that Canadians have those options, is going to be fine."
Health Canada also raised another red flag Tuesday, this one in the form of sunflower oil, a key ingredient that's been caught up in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, together the source of half the world's supply.
The agency said it plans to extend a temporary scheme, currently set to expire at the end of June, to import more baby formula from Europe and the United States to bolster domestic supplies.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 24, 2022.
Russia has put Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on its wanted list, Russian state media reported Saturday, citing the interior ministry’s database.
A man was denied a $5,000 payout from his brother after a B.C. tribunal dismissed his claim disputing how many kittens were born in a litter.
A Chinese truck driver was praised in local media Saturday for parking his vehicle across a highway and preventing more cars from tumbling down a slope after a section of the road in the country's mountainous south collapsed and killed at least 48 people.
A man accused of arson in a January Old Strathcona apartment fire is expected to be charged with manslaughter after a body was discovered in the burned building late last month.
Ontario Provincial Police say two people were killed after a car and a transport truck collided in the westbound lanes of Highway 417 near Limoges, Ont. on Tuesday afternoon.
A Quebec man who pleaded guilty to threatening Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Premier François Legault has been sentenced to 20 months in jail.
A candidate for Chancellor Olaf Scholz's center-left party in next month's election for the European Parliament was beaten up and seriously injured while campaigning in an eastern city, the party said Saturday.
Police are investigating after a BMW exploded in the St-Lambert Exo train station parking lot on Montreal's South Shore.
A group of lawyers has written what they call a groundbreaking book about how mental health is perceived in the legal profession.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.
Out of more than 9,000 entries from over 2,000 breweries in 50 countries, a handful of B.C. brews landed on the podium at the World Beer Cup this week.
Raneem, 10, lives with a neurological condition and liver disease and needs Cholbam, a medication, for a longer and healthier life.