Parliament will soon create a new forum for investigating and debating international trade issues, and it’s happening at a crucial time for World Trade Organization negotiations.
When MPs return to Parliament Hill April 24 after their Easter break, they are expected to quickly launch a new House of Commons international trade committee to be chaired by veteran Alberta Conservative MP Leon Benoit.
Until now, trade issues have been dealt with on Parliament Hill through the foreign affairs and international trade committee. Trade issues usually took a back seat to other foreign affairs issues.
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There has been an all-party agreement to create four new committees, trade among them.
Once it has been established, the trade committee is expected to quickly begin hearing witnesses and gathering evidence on trade files such as the lingering effects of the softwood lumber and BSE disputes with the United States to the issues at play in Geneva as negotiators enter what are considered crucial weeks in the WTO agricultural negotiations.
Benoit, who has represented the agriculture and oil-dominated east-central Alberta riding of Lakeland since 1993, said the committee will give trade issues a higher political profile on Parliament Hill.
“You put foreign affairs and trade together and there are just so many issues that many, I think of all the agricultural issues as an example, get shortchanged,” he said.
“I am hoping that more MPs and certainly members of the trade committee become more knowledgeable about the WTO, what is happening there and the implications of some of the things that are at play there.”
However, Benoit said there might be overlap with the Commons agriculture committee, which often looks at trade issues.
“It’s clearly something we will have to work out with agriculture but the issues there are so important and have such a potential impact that I think it is important to have a forum where they can be explored.”
An early topic for hearings likely will be the fate of the WTO agricultural talks. They will be the focus of intense negotiations in Geneva during the last two weeks of April as negotiators try to meet an April 30 deadline to settle the principles of an agricultural deal intended to eliminate export subsidies, reduce production-distorting domestic subsidies and increase market access.
Agriculture minister Chuck Strahl is expected to fly to Geneva at the end of April if it appears deals are possible with a political push.
An official in the office of trade minister David Emerson said it is unclear if he would travel to Switzerland. If the end-of-April focus in Geneva is agriculture, the Conservative government has designated Strahl as the lead minister in those negotiations.
Meanwhile, Strahl flies to Washington late this week for his first face-to-face meeting with U.S. agriculture secretary Mike Johanns to discuss cross-border irritants and WTO issues.
