Western Producer staff
Canada’s “balanced” trade position of supporting the goals of both the export sectors and supply management is the latest target of the Reform Party’s apparent determination to gore some Canadian sacred cows.
Reform Party leader Preston Manning last week suggested Canada should be willing to reduce its support for supply management protection in the interests of gaining greater grain sales into the U.S.
Canadian government and Canadian Federation of Agriculture representatives have long argued that such a policy would pit eastern farmers against western farmers and give Quebec separatists another grievance to exploit.
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But the politics of regional compromise apparently hold little appeal for Manning and his party.
That became clear when he told a reporter that Canada is the author of some its own problems in the farm trade dispute with the U.S. because it supported supply management border protections during recently-concluded world trade talks.
“We know one of the reasons the Americans consider us vulnerable on this is because six months ago (at GATT talks), they (the federal government) were arguing in favor of supply management and Article 11,” said the Reform leader. “The Americans can say to them: ‘you guys are real free traders when it comes to food products but six or eight months ago, you were singing a different tune.’ “
In other words, give up on supply management protections and the Americans will favor us with greater access for prairie products.
With that rare excursion into the complicated world of agricultural policy, Manning was opening a can of worms the government has been desperately trying to keep a lid on — the regional implications of the trade dispute.
The problem is that it involves both Canadian demands for access to the American market for prairie wheat and American demands for access to the now-protected largely-eastern market for dairy and poultry products.
The Americans have been trying to link the two, inviting the Canadian government to trade off one for the other.
They offered access for up to 1.5 million tonnes of wheat if Canada agreed to open borders on supply management. Otherwise, wheat access would be much smaller. Canada has steadfastly refused to recognize the connection, fearing that trading the interests of one region for another would create a damaging political uproar that could be exploited by the Bloc QuŽbecois to show that the government favors western grain interests over Quebec dairy and poultry interests.
Yet the linkage remains, whether Canada wants it or not. The Americans would have offered more wheat access if Canada offered more dairy access.
And it was this linkage that Reform seemed willing to exploit last week.
This Liberal government and the previous Conservative government have worked hard during the past seven years of trade talks to downplay the connection, in order to avoid regional wars between farmers.
Based on last week’s performance, it is not a national truce the Reform Party seems interested in supporting.
