OTTAWA – Canada is cutting agricultural spending supports faster than necessary under world trade rules, and faster than some of its main competitors, a senior Agriculture Canada official said recently.
But Frank Claydon, assistant deputy minister for policy, was making no apologies.
“My sense is there are ways you could say we are reducing more than others are but I’m not sure that’s bad.
“Our view is that it isn’t how much you spend but how well you spend that is important.”
Claydon said all countries will have to cut more eventually and if Canada has already cut and adjusted, it will have a competitive advantage in markets of the future.
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It is a sensitive point for the Liberal government and its MPs.
Critics of agriculture spending cuts often complain that by going further than international trade rules require, Canada is putting its farmers at a disadvantage.
Meanwhile, competitors like the United States and the European Union are maintaining as much farm support spending as world trade rules allow.
While Canada has announced an end to its grain export subsidies, a 20 percent cut in research spending and a 30 percent cut in safety net funding, the United States administration was proposing a budget that would cut farm program spending by just 15 percent over five years. Export subsidies would be preserved, as would commodity price supports.
Calm the opposition
Last week during a Commons agriculture committee meeting, Manitoba Liberal MP Marlene Cowling tried to deflect criticism on the point.
“I’m hoping we are doing it (dismantling support programs) at the same pace as other countries,” she said. “We need to send a message that if we are all doing it at the same pace, it is fair.”
Claydon offered little comfort. He said it was difficult to compare the spending in different countries.
But he conceded Canada is not supporting farmers as much as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade would allow.
“We’re not using all that room,” he said. “There is more we could do. That has to be tempered by what is fiscally possible.”
