A poor telephone line muddled his message to Canadian reporters, but Lyle Vanclief said the message he delivered to the Cairns Group in Argentina was received loud and clear.
The federal agriculture minister said Canada’s initial negotiating position for agriculture in the coming World Trade Organization talks in Seattle, Washington “has clearly had an impact on the final communiquŽ that was released at the end of the Cairns Group meeting.”
The Cairns Group comprises 15 agricultural exporting nations united in opposing the might of the world’s agricultural superpowers.
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Vanclief told reporters that Canada took a lead role among the major players in the Cairns Group by announcing its WTO negotiating position before the three-day conference, which concluded in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Aug. 29.
Canada wants to eliminate export subsidies, substantially reduce domestic support for agriculture and improve market access for agricultural commodities, especially food products.
“I’m encouraged that all the 15 members of the Cairns Group share the goal of eliminating and banning export subsidies,” said Vanclief.
The meeting wrapped up a week-long trade mission led by Vanclief in which he discussed trade irritants with his counterparts in Brazil and Argentina.
He said the trade mission made significant strides on one of Canada’s key sales problems in Latin America – high tariffs on durum wheat. Tariffs are currently set at 13 percent on all wheat imports.
“We clearly indicated and showed them that durum is quite frankly a different commodity and the Brazilian minister was very, very much interested in examining that,” said Vanclief.
He told the Brazilian minister that millers there could blend high quality Canadian durum with other wheat grown in Argentina and Brazil to produce the millions of dollars worth of pasta the country is now importing from the European Union.
