Local fruit and vegetable producers risk losing thousands of dollars, shutting down, or moving across the border after the U.S. government took away a trading privilege that has been available for more than 75 years.
Canadian produce companies that were owed money from U.S. companies could pay $100 to start a legal process, under the Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act. This would happen when U.S. companies didn’t pay their bills on time, at all, or when the company declared bankruptcy.
But in October 2014, the United States withdrew Canada’s privileged access to PACA after the Canadian government neglected to implement the same privileges this side of the border. Now Canadian fruit and vegetable producers have to pay twice the amount of money they’re owed to get access to the unpaid funds. If they’re owed $100,000 for cucumbers for example, they have to pay $200,000 as a bond to get the process started.
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