For the first time, federal trade minister Stockwell Day has said the Conservative government would refuse to sign a world trade deal if it undermined Canadian farm marketing systems.
He included supply management, which is facing tariff cuts and increased imports under current World Trade Organization texts, and the Canadian Wheat Board, which would lose its monopoly status under existing working texts.
He said Canada will continue to be inflexible on the issues and hopes a final text would not undermine Canada’s non-negotiable items.
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“I hate to think we would get to a place where we would not be able to negotiate around this.”
However, what if the WTO majority overrules Canada?
On Oct. 8, during a House of Commons trade committee meeting, New Democrat Peter Julian said he wanted to get the minister on the record.
“The government will not sign agricultural provisions that do not fully protect supply management?” the British Columbia MP asked.
“Absolutely,” Day replied.
“We have been very clear on that.”
Julian also asked about the chair’s text that would strip monopoly powers from state trading enterprises, namely the wheat board.
“We have been equally clear related to the wheat board,” Day said.
“We’ve said we respect what might be tabled or might be suggested in Geneva, but we make decisions on the Canadian Wheat Board. We’ll make those decisions around this table, we’ll make those decisions in Parliament and on that we’ve been very clear.”
In the past, Canadian business leaders and agricultural exporters have argued it is inconceivable that a trading nation such as Canada would refuse to sign a broad WTO deal, putting tens of billions of dollars of trade opportunities at stake.
Typically, this government and previous Liberal governments vowed to fight for domestic marketing systems but stopped short of predicting what the government would do if the final WTO text did damage.
Only in 2007 did a minister offer a speculation and it was far different from Day’s.
Then-trade minister David Emerson was summoned before the Commons agriculture committee after he said in an interview that Canada’s defensive protectionist interests in WTO talks were damaging its aggressive export interests.
He repeated the vow to continue defending supply management in Geneva, but then went further.
“Having said that, I think everyone in this room knows that it is inconceivable at the end of these negotiations if there was a successful (WTO) realm, it is inconceivable Canada would opt out,” Emerson said.
“So we have to think about how we give our strong position on supply management, how we ensure that position is preserved at the end of this round of negotiations and when there is no room to engage in discussions, that will be a challenge.”
Then-agriculture minister Chuck Strahl made the same point that narrow agricultural interests could not in the end stop a broad WTO deal.
In theory, if Canada refused to sign a WTO deal, it would collapse because WTO agreements happen by consensus.
The Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance, formed by exporters to push for an aggressive WTO deal, took Day’s comments in stride.
CAFTA executive director Kathleen Sullivan said the minister could make that pledge because he hopes for a compromise that reflects Canada’s interests and because a decisive moment of truth does not seem imminent.
“We were in Geneva last week and it didn’t look like a WTO deal is imminent,” she said Oct. 9.
Vow to defend
Earlier last week at the Commons trade committee, chief agriculture negotiator Gilles Gauthier said his mandate from the federal government is to say no to any proposal that would undermine supply management.
He conceded that it leaves Canada with few friends on the issue.
“In terms of the developed countries, the position that Canada is taking is a bit at odds with where others are,” he said.
“Most other developed countries have accepted the principle of making some concessions, including in their sensitive products.”
Steve Verheul, Gauthier’s predecessor, has repeatedly said Canada is isolated, one against 153 on the issue.
Canada’s overall chief WTO negotiator Don Stephenson told MPs that Canada is in “an unusual and extreme” position of not being able to negotiate.
“My instructions from the government are that decisions about the manner in which Canadian agricultural producers market their products should be made in Canada and not in Geneva,” he said.
“Until those aren’t my instructions, they are.”
Ontario Conservative Ed Holder said: “It doesn’t feel like a negotiation to me if our stance is so firm.”
