Canada’s four western provinces set aside their traditional disagreement on trade policy objectives last week to embrace the need for a new international trade deal, even if Canada has to compromise.
They called for Canadian negotiators to be flexible in the talks to help secure a deal. Typically, this is a code for calling on Canada to back away from its longstanding vow to accept no weakening of support for supply management protections.
“Our problem is that other countries have made moves but Canada has put nothing on the table,” Saskatchewan agriculture minister Bob Bjornerud said in a telephone news conference from Geneva July 22, early in a scheduled week of ministerial negotiations that stretched into a second week. “We can’t sell out the rest of our economy to supply management.”
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He said he did not favour an end to the protected system of dairy, poultry and egg production, merely agreement to allow reduction in tariffs that often approach 300 percent.
Normally, remarks like that would draw a rebuke from Manitoba and British Columbia. Both provinces have in the past supported the ‘no compromise’ stance.
But last week in Geneva, the four provinces cobbled together a joint statement that avoided mentioning supply management tariffs specifically but called for Canada to get a deal.
Manitoba minister Rosann Wowchuk concentrated on the need for a deal to reduce production-distorting domestic subsidies. B.C. minister Stan Hagen said the province needs a deal “that has the best outcomes for all sectors.”
However, Bjornerud said the joint statement was a clear message to Quebec and Ontario that a united West wants the compromise necessary to get a deal.
“I think we all pulled in our horns a little (to reach a common position),” he said. “I think it bodes well for agriculture in the West down the road.”
The Saskatchewan minister said he understood Quebec’s stance in favour of no compromise on supply management because of the size of the sector in that province. Ontario, with 65 percent of its agricultural receipts from exports, was more difficult to understand.
“I find that quite amazing,” he said.
Meanwhile, Bjornerud’s suggestion to reporters that Canada also could get some WTO credit and concessions from others if it indicated it is willing to give up the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly drew fire from National Farmers Union president Stewart Wells of Swift Current.
He issued a statement challenging the argument that increased trade, even if at the expense of domestic marketing boards, will be good for agriculture.
“Bjornerud’s claim that western Canadian farmers will receive higher net incomes as a result of increased trade and higher exports is a myth,” said the NFU president.
“The reality is that despite steadily rising exports over the past 30 years, realized net farm incomes in Canada have not kept pace. In fact, they have fallen dramatically.”
