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Alberta

China’s ban on Canadian beef still in place year-and-a-half later; industry in dark

Published

3 years ago

6 minute read

CALGARY — A Chinese ban on Canadian beef that industry officials expected would be short-lived remains in place 17 months later, and industry representatives say they remain in the dark about the reasons.

China has been blocking beef shipments from Canadian processing plants ever since an atypical case of BSE, or mad cow disease, was found on an Alberta farm in December of 2021.

At the time, Canadian officials expressed little concern that the case would have lasting market impacts. Atypical BSE develops spontaneously in about one in every one million cattle and unlike the classic BSE strain — which has been linked to the fatal neurological disorder Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease — it poses no health risk to humans and is not transmissible.

While most of Canada’s trading partners did not respond with any form of trade restrictions after the discovery of the case, South Korea and the Philippines joined China in suspending beef imports from this country.

However, both South Korea and the Philippines lifted the restrictions less than two months later, while China — which in 2021 was Canada’s third-largest beef export market, importing $193 million worth of product — has still not resumed trade.

“Most countries do not close when you find an atypical case,” said Dennis Laycraft, executive vice-president for the Canadian Cattle Association.

“It’s just a few that did and you know, all those other countries opened up fairly quickly. So yeah, really the outlier here is China.”

Adding to the confusion, Laycraft said, is the fact that both Brazil and Ireland have also recently had their beef blocked by China due to cases of atypical BSE in those countries. But China has resumed beef trade with both of those countries, and it took only a short time — in the case of Brazil, only four weeks.

Laycraft said he doesn’t know what the sticking point is when it comes to Canada, adding only that he doesn’t believe there is a scientific explanation.

“We’re pretty confident all of the technical requirements and information that was needed has been provided, to allow the decision to reopen,” he said.

“We certainly don’t believe there’s, on that side, any reason for it not to be. They just, you know, haven’t responded.”

In 2019, China blocked canola shipments from two major Canadian companies, not long after Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou was arrested by Canadian authorities. That ban lasted for three years.

Tensions between Canada and China have recently ratcheted up again, with the Canadian government on Monday expelling Chinese diplomat Zhao Wei, alleging he was involved in a plot to intimidate Conservative MP Michael Chong and his relatives in Hong Kong.

The renewed tensions have even led the canola industry to express concern that China will retaliate to Canada’s expulsion of its diplomat by blocking agricultural shipments.

But Gordon Houlden, director emeritus of the China Institute at the University of Alberta, said the beef industry’s ongoing issue demonstrates that some of Ottawa’s trade challenges with Beijing are pre-existing.

“Some people are jumping to the wrong conclusions and because of this latest exchange, the question of the diplomatic expulsions, they assume that it’s going to immediately lead to a whole series of further restrictions,” Houlden said. 

“But some of these problems go back a long way.”

Houlden said it’s not abnormal for China to move slowly on the regulatory front, due to a combination of “bureaucracy and lethargy.” He added that China is not always keen to wield trade as a weapon because it is a major exporter itself and knows such tactics can backfire. 

However, he said the fact that China has lifted similar restrictions against beef imports from other countries suggests that at some level, politics is likely playing a role in the delay. Houlden added that while it’s hard to know for certain what China’s motivation is on any given issue, it’s fair to say that Canada’s current relationship with China is frosty enough that Beijing is unlikely to make an effort to fast-track the beef issue.

“I think we can surmise that right now politics is not in a position to help solve the problem, and in fact may be part of the problem,” Houlden said.

Laycraft said during the year-and-a-half that the Chinese market has been closed, the Canadian beef industry has seen increasing sales into Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and other Asian countries. He said this has been due in large part to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement forTrans-Pacific Partnership, a free-trade agreement between Canada and 10 other countries in the Asia-Pacific region.

“We’d like to see things get back on a more normal track with China. We had some really good customers there that we were starting to build relationships with,” Laycraft said. 

“At the same time, we’re doing very well in other markets in Asia … So we’re not in the same vulnerable position that potentially other products from Canada are.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 11, 2023.

Amanda Stephenson, The Canadian Press

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Alberta

‘Weird and wonderful’ wells are boosting oil production in Alberta and Saskatchewan

Published on November 20, 2025

By

From the Canadian Energy Centre

By Deborah Jaremko

Multilateral designs lift more energy with a smaller environmental footprint

A “weird and wonderful” drilling innovation in Alberta is helping producers tap more oil and gas at lower cost and with less environmental impact.

With names like fishbone, fan, comb-over and stingray, “multilateral” wells turn a single wellbore from the surface into multiple horizontal legs underground.

“They do look spectacular, and they are making quite a bit of money for small companies, so there’s a lot of interest from investors,” said Calin Dragoie, vice-president of geoscience with Calgary-based Chinook Consulting Services.

Dragoie, who has extensively studied the use of multilateral wells, said the technology takes horizontal drilling — which itself revolutionized oil and gas production — to the next level.

“It’s something that was not invented in Canada, but was perfected here. And it’s something that I think in the next few years will be exported as a technology to other parts of the world,” he said.

Dragoie’s research found that in 2015 less than 10 per cent of metres drilled in Western Canada came from multilateral wells. By last year, that share had climbed to nearly 60 per cent.  

Royalty incentives in Alberta have accelerated the trend, and Saskatchewan has introduced similar policy.

Multilaterals first emerged alongside horizontal drilling in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Dragoie said. But today’s multilaterals are longer, more complex and more productive.

The main play is in Alberta’s Marten Hills region, where producers are using multilaterals to produce shallow heavy oil.

Today’s average multilateral has about 7.5 horizontal legs from a single surface location, up from four or six just a few years ago, Dragoie said.

One record-setting well in Alberta drilled by Tamarack Valley Energy in 2023 features 11 legs stretching two miles each, for a total subsurface reach of 33 kilometres — the longest well in Canada.

By accessing large volumes of oil and gas from a single surface pad, multilaterals reduce land impact by a factor of five to ten compared to conventional wells, he said.

The designs save money by skipping casing strings and cement in each leg, and production is amplified as a result of increased reservoir contact.

Here are examples of multilateral well design. Images courtesy Chinook Consulting Services.

Parallel

Fishbone

Fan

Waffle

Stingray

Frankenwells

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Alberta

Alberta to protect three pro-family laws by invoking notwithstanding clause

Published on November 19, 2025

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Premier Danielle Smith said her government will use a constitutional tool to defend a ban on transgender surgery for minors and stopping men from competing in women’s sports.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said her government will use a rare constitutional tool, the notwithstanding clause, to ensure three bills passed this year — a ban on transgender surgery for minors, stopping men from competing in women’s sports, and protecting kids from extreme aspects of the LGBT agenda — stand and remain law after legal attacks from extremist activists. 

Smith’s United Conservative Party (UCP) government stated that it will utilize a new law, Bill 9, to ensure that laws passed last year remain in effect.

“Children deserve the opportunity to grow into adulthood before making life-altering decisions about their gender and fertility,” Smith said in a press release sent to LifeSiteNews and other media outlets yesterday. 

“By invoking the notwithstanding clause, we’re ensuring that laws safeguarding children’s health, education and safety cannot be undone – and that parents are fully involved in the major decisions affecting their children’s lives. That is what Albertans expect, and that is what this government will unapologetically defend.”

Alberta Justice Minister and Attorney General Mickey Amery said that the laws passed last year are what Albertans voted for in the last election. 

“These laws reflect an overwhelming majority of Albertans, and it is our responsibility to ensure that they will not be overturned or further delayed by activists in the courts,” he noted. 

“The notwithstanding clause reinforces democratic accountability by keeping decisions in the hands of those elected by Albertans. By invoking it, we are providing certainty that these protections will remain in place and that families can move forward with clarity and confidence.”

The Smith government said the notwithstanding clause will apply to the following pieces of legislation:

  • Bill 26, the Health Statutes Amendment Act, 2024, prohibits both gender reassignment surgery for children under 18 and the provision of puberty blockers and hormone treatments for the purpose of gender reassignment to children under 16.

  • Bill 27, the Education Amendment Act, 2024, requires schools to obtain parental consent when a student under 16 years of age wishes to change his or her name or pronouns for reasons related to the student’s gender identity, and requires parental opt-in consent to teaching on gender identity, sexual orientation or human sexuality.

  • Bill 29, the Fairness and Safety in Sport Act, requires the governing bodies of amateur competitive sports in Alberta to implement policies that limit participation in women’s and girls’ sports to those who were born female.”

Bill 26 was passed in December of 2024, and it amends the Health Act to “prohibit regulated health professionals from performing sex reassignment surgeries on minors.”

Last year, Smith’s government also passed Bill 27, a law banning schools from hiding a child’s pronoun changes at school that will help protect kids from the extreme aspects of the LGBT agenda.

Bill 27 will also empower the education minister to, in effect, stop the spread of extreme forms of pro-LGBT ideology or anything else to be allowed to be taught in schools via third parties.

Bill 29, which became law last December, bans gender-confused men from competing in women’s sports, the first legislation of its kind in Canada.  The law applies to all school boards, universities, and provincial sports organizations. 

Alberta’s notwithstanding clause is like all other provinces’ clauses and was a condition Alberta agreed to before it signed onto the nation’s 1982 constitution.

It is meant as a check to balance power between the court system and the government elected by the people. Once it is used, as passed in the legislature, a court cannot rule that the “legislation which the notwithstanding clause applies to be struck down based on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Alberta Bill of Rights, or the Alberta Human Rights Act,” the Alberta government noted.

While Smith has done well on some points, she has still been relatively soft on social issues of importance to conservatives , such as abortion, and has publicly expressed pro-LGBT views, telling Jordan Peterson earlier this year that conservatives must embrace homosexual “couples” as “nuclear families.” 

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