Announcement came during annual conference in Ottawa, Ontario
By Diego Flammini, Farms.com
There’s a new president of the Canadian Meat Council (CMC) for 2015-2016 and their name is Joe Reda.
Mr. Reda, who last year served as First Vice President, will take over for Henry Mizrahi, who served as president for 2014-2015. The announcement was made during the CMC’s 95th annual conference held in Ottawa, Ontario.
Mr. Reda is the Co-CEO and co-owner of Viau Food Products Inc., which was founded in 1977 and has two operations in Quebec – one in Montreal and one in Laval.
As president of the Canadian Meat Council, he will help lead the organization in advocating “for the needs of its members to secure and improve Canada’s global meat competitiveness.”
One of Mr. Reda’s first orders of business will be to influence the government to help Canada cement their participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
“The Canadian Meat Council calls on all political parties in Canada to step up to the plate and acknowledge the pivotal importance for Canada of maintaining competitive access to international markets for Canadian agriculture and agri-food products,” said Reda.
The TPP is a free trade agreement consisting of the following 12 countries: Canada, the United States, Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.
The nations account for 40% of the world’s economic output and more importantly, about 77% of Canada’s meat exports.
Canada’s meat exports to other TPP countries in 2014 were:
- $94 million to Australia
- $41 million to Chile
- $340 million to Mexico
- $25 million to New Zealand
- $6 million to Peru
- $2.8 billion to the United States
Join the conversation and tell us your thoughts about Canada’s potential involvement in a Trans-Pacific Partnership. Are you encouraged that the market for Canadian meat appears strong?