Too many tariffs Carleton University professor Michael Hart says getting rid of tariffs would make ag industries more competitive
QUEBEC CITY — One of the key architects of the 1989 Canada-United States free trade deal says it is time to take the next great leap against protectionism by eliminating tariffs.
Michael Hart, a lead negotiator in the CUSTA negotiations, told the annual conference of the Canadian Meat Council June 1 that an announcement Canada will eliminate tariffs over 10 years would send a signal to the world that the country is serious about trade liberalization.
It would expose protected inefficient industries to competition that would improve the country’s competitiveness.
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Supply management protections are high on Hart’s target list in a paper he calls Breaking Free that will be published by the conservative C.D. Howe Institute.
He argued that the 1989 Canada-U.S. deal marked the official end of the century-old National Policy of Sir John A. Macdonald that aimed to build Canadian industry behind protectionist barriers.
But political pressure forced the Progressive Conservative government of the day to exclude supply management and its high tariffs from the deal.
“Supply management continues to have a very nice situation,” said the trade policy expert and Carleton University professor. “But it comes at a very heavy cost.”
Hart said dairy sectors in New Zealand and Australia have lost their protections and now are major and profitable suppliers of dairy products to the growing Asian market.
He also proposed an end to country-of-origin rules, anti-dumping and countervail policies and government subsidies of the sort that he says have propped up the ethanol industry.
“I would like to see government say it will get rid of all production subsides,” he said, without outlining how that might affect farm supports.
As part of his ‘step two’ proposal, Hart also called for significant paring of regulations for industries including the meat industry and a requirement that any regulation being amended have a five-year sunset clause included.
He said the proliferation of regulations often is a response to the risk-aversion instincts of what he called the zealots in advocacy groups.
“I think the time has come for Canada to stand up and say we think some of those regulations have to be reconsidered,” he said. It is time for industry “to be much more proactive telling the government ‘no.’”
The former senior federal trade negotiator said the Conservative government’s fixation with negotiating bilateral free trade deals with any country willing to talk seems to lack direction and priority focus. Many of the FTA negotiations are with countries engaged in minimal trade with Canada and yet can take years to complete, absorbing trade negotiator and political time.
