Source:  News Release, 7/23/09

The North Carolina Agribusiness Council announced today that it is joining numerous other agricultural and tobacco-grower organizations in support of an advertising campaign calling upon Congress and the Obama Administration to oppose legislation moving through the Canadian Parliament that would ban American blend cigarettes.

The bill, known as C-32, would impose undue hardships on American farmers who grow burley tobacco, an economic staple in North Carolina as well as many other states in the South and the Midwest. Further, the C-32 measure could lead to other countries following Canada’s protectionist lead, a development that could destroy an entire segment of the American tobacco growing community.

C-32 passed the House of Commons in June, and will likely be considered by its Senate when the Canadian Parliament returns from its summer recess in September. The bill, originally intended to prohibit candy-flavored cigarillos, has morphed into an overreaching bill that would ban the entire category of American blend cigarettes, leading to loss of thousands of jobs and a worsening of trade relations between the United States and Canada.

The advocacy campaign will feature two print advertisements over the next two weeks in Roll Call, The Hill and Politico, three newspapers that are widely read by Members of Congress, U.S. Senators, and policymakers inside the Obama Administration. The advertisements, which are entitled “Barn” and “Farm Couple,” are attached to this press release.

“The original intent of C-32, which was to ban candy-flavored cigarillos that are clearly targeted to minors, has been subverted by legislative wrangling,” said Erica Peterson, Executive Vice President of the North Carolina Agribusiness Council. “The current language in the C-32 bill now goes way too far. This discriminatory bill targets American blend cigarettes and American growers of burley tobacco, while not banning the Canadian tobacco. If the Canadian Parliament enacts this legislation, people working in the American tobacco industry will needlessly lose their jobs, and support for continued free trade between the United States and Canada will be diminished.”

“We want our elected officials in Washington to send a clear message to their counterparts in Canada that C-32 must be fixed before it is enacted,” Peterson continued. “The Canadian Parliament should stop and think before they destroy American jobs and increase trade tensions. There is too much at stake for them to rush forward with this misguided, job-destroying piece of legislation.”

Already, several Members of Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, have voiced their concerns to the Canadian government about the negative impact C-32 would have on American jobs and trade relations with the United States. The elected officials writing letters on this issue include U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY), U.S. Rep. Ben Chandler (D-KY), U.S. Rep. Geoff Davis (R-KY), U.S. Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY), U.S. Rep. Harold Rogers (R-KY), U.S. Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-KY),  U.S. Rep. Phil Roe (R-TN), U.S. Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA), U.S. Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), and U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA).

In addition, leading business organizations in Canada and the United States such as the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and the United States Chamber of Commerce have written in opposition to C-32 as it is currently drafted. Copies of these letters and those sent by the above lawmakers are available upon request.

The following organizations are participating in the advertising campaign to educate American and Canadian policymakers about the negative impact C-32 will have on jobs and trade relations between the United States and Canada:

Burley Stabilization Corporation, Burley Tobacco Growers Cooperative Association, Council for Burley Tobacco Inc., Fair Products Inc., International Tobacco Growers Association, Kentucky Farm Bureau, North Carolina Agribusiness Council, North Carolina Farm Bureau, North Carolina Growers Association, Palmetto Agribusiness Council, Philip Morris International Inc., Tobacco Growers Association of North Carolina and the Virginia Farm Bureau.