Ottawa - Gord Brown, Member of Parliament for Leeds-Grenville is hopeful that a delay in border shipments that is affecting Casco products will be addressed in a timely fashion.

"Since Monday I have approached the Secretary of State for International Trade, the Agriculture Minister and last night I spoke with the Honourable Michael Wilson, Canadian Ambassador to the United States about this pressing concern," says Brown.

On May 3, the US Department of Customs and Border Protection implemented a sampling and testing program on a number of products including corn gluten feed, food starch and industrial starch. They are testing for the presence of melamine in animal feed, wheat gluten, corn gluten, rice protein and corn starch.

According to information received by Brown's office the testing procedure will take at least five to10 days and companies cannot export any product under a given tariff number until testing is completed on the initial two shipments per plant.

This would effectively close the US/Canada border to exporters of these products for the testing period and it is not clear what will occur after that.

"I know that Casco supports the goal of protecting the US food supply but the company also needs to ensure that commerce is allowed to occur," says Brown.

"This is an important issue for Casco and its employees," he adds. "I am working as hard as I can to get it resolved."

He notes that he continues to be involved in both the Border Caucus and the Canada-United States Inter-Parliamentary Group.

"As a member I have an opportunity to meet with our counterparts from the US to stress the importance of these types of issues."

For example, he explains, from May 18-21 the 48th annual meeting of the Canada-US group is taking place in Windsor.

"The agenda includes trade and economic issues and trans-border issues among others," explains Brown.

Meanwhile, he has received assurances from both the Ambassador and the federal ministries that the testing program is a priority.