The issue of washing trucks carrying live pigs into the United States, visiting farms and then coming back to Manitoba isn’t going away.

The Western Canadian Swine Health Alliance keeps asking Canada’s agriculture minister over the suspension of an emergency protocol designed to keep PED out of Canada.

Effective May 2, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency ended a protocol which had allowed swine transports returning from U.S. farms to be washed and disinfected in Canada and is now requiring disinfection and cleaning in the U.S.

Why is that a concern? Because often those trucks were getting washed with recycled water possibly PEDV contaminated. The Western Canadian Swine health Alliance has sent a letter to Federal Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay expressing concern over the change and calling for a solution that will address producer concerns.

Alliance chair Dickson Gould says these trailers face a far greater risk of contamination from PED virus or other diseases at U.S. truck wash facilities than they would at a U.S. farm. “

When our pigs go down to the U.S. it’s usually single sources of pigs or pigs of the same health status going into that farm and the only touch point between the inside of those trailers and the farm is the loading dock and the back of the trailer,” said Gould. “If we have to go in and get the trucks washed and disinfected in a wash facility that is using recycled water and if there happens to be PED virus at that site, then basically all of the crevices within the inside of that trailer get contaminated.”

Former Ag minister Gerry Ritz says this is the issue. There is a law on the books that has said all along that trucks have to be washed before they cross the border. That means they have to be done on the American side.

“Two years ago I put an emergency order in place because of PEDv to say the trucks could be washed on the Canadian side. The easiest way was to say you come through customs, seal the trailer, and go to the closest truck wash about an hour away. They did it and we inspected them there.”

That order ended May 2, 2016, and Liberal Ag minister Lawrence MacAulay did not extend it, or didn’t do anything about it, he says.

“I made the offer to the then government of Manitoba under Growing Forward 2, that they build the building because the federal government does not do bricks and mortar, we are not allowed to, have the industry build the building, the feds put in all the necessary equipment in it, at federal government expense,” said Ritz. “The industry or the government would have to run it and we do it right at the Customs Plaza, at Emerson, right where the bulk of the trucks come across. The industry and the Province of Manitoba at that time, could never get their act together, to make this happen. That offer died with me at the election and Canadian Food Inspection Agency is simply doing their job because they are liable should more PED v transfer into Canada and start to spread once again.”

The former Ag minister says he had a round table conference call with Rick Bergmann, chair of the Canadian Pork Council, who is driving this thing, he talked to other provinces, no one else had a concern at that time, only Manitoba where a bulk of the Isoweans are going down live and the trucks coming back empty. They’ve been on farms and that is the problem and no one has ever resolved it in a way that satisfies Rick Bergman or satisfies Steve’s Trucking of Blumenort.

“I said to the people at that time, if you want to sign a letter that you as the pork industry Rick and you as a trucking company Steve, you’re liable, wash them anywhere you want. That is the complexity of this issue. It is CFIA following the letter of the law, which they are forced to do, and the government now where the minister doesn’t have a clue,” he said. Gould says timing is very important. “Every day that passes further raises the risk and I would like to see this resolved as soon as possible.” •

— By Harry Siemens