December is a big month in Canada's fight against Country of Origin Labelling (COOL) in the United States.

Next week Monday the World Trade Organization will announce the level of tariffs Canada and Mexico will be allowed to impose as retaliation on American products, if the U.S. does not repeal mandatory labelling laws.

Canadian Pork Council chair Rick Bergmann says they hope the U.S. will comply with the WTO guidelines.

"We're watching very closely at the dates in December here where the WTO will reveal the dollar amount the two countries can use as a retaliatory number," he says, "and again, the United States will have a very short timeline to come into compliance before retaliation can occur."

At last week's fall Pork Council meeting in Ottawa, the new Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay spoke to the members. After speaking with him, Bergmann feels that the new government shares their concerns about COOL.

"He said that the Liberal government is very keen in ensuring that trade relationships and trade laws specifically are being followed by their trade partners," Bergmann says. "When I heard that, it gave me a significant amount of encouragement that this federal government will be very persistent in ensuring that our interests are going to be looked after."

Last week's Pork Council meeting included further discussions on international trade, and Bergmann says they are pleased with MacAulay's comments of support of Canadian access to foreign markets.