There is only a slim chance that World Trade Organization negotiations will produce a deal this year and that should lead Canada to negotiate more bilateral deals, agriculture minister Gerry Ritz said last week.
“I think there is very, very slight chance there will be any kind of movement or anything to salvage it to move forward on,” the minister said Oct. 19.
Although Canadian negotiators continue to work in Geneva to try to negotiate a deal that benefits all sectors, Ritz said, time is running out before the American election year starts. On Jan. 1 the focus of the United States shifts from international compromise to domestic politics.
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Ritz began by suggesting there will be no agreement this year but later said that there is not much chance but the patient is at least still breathing.
Without a breakthrough soon, talks could be set back for years.
“We’re probably looking at a two year hiatus. That’s my own opinion now.”
Ritz said if talks stall, agriculture should not bear the entire blame. Advanced developing countries like India and Brazil have their own issues.
“There is no agreement yet on agriculture to move forward and if there was, then it moves back to the NAMA group (non-agricultural market access) and there’s no agreement there,” he said. “So they’ve always used agriculture to say this is why they failed while they protect their auto industries and aircraft industries and everything else.”
The agriculture minister said he spoke with trade minister David Emerson last week and both agreed that there should be more emphasis on negotiations toward establishing two-nation trade deals.
“The Liberals did none in their 12 years (and) we’ve already got seven in the works,” he said. “The Americans went ahead and did 34 or 35 so they beat us to the punch.”
Ritz said even the export lobby including the Canadian Agrifood Trade Alliance and the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association are pressing for bilateral deals.
“It (used to be) all WTO or nothing and they wanted all their eggs, and that’s not a supply management thing, in one basket and we kept saying we’ve got to do both, we’ve got to be prepared for eventualities,” said the minister.
Ritz also rejected criticism from the trade alliance that the Conservative negotiating stance in Geneva is being undermined by an inflexible defence of supply management. And he reiterated earlier assertions by other ministers that Canada cannot afford to walk away from a deal over the supply management issue alone.
“It’s not our position on supply management that is tipping the tide at WTO,” he said. “We’ve always stood firm in the resolve that we are not going to leave any farmgate behind. Having said that, we’re the one country standing alone against 140 some other countries. If they voted for this change, we couldn’t stem the tide and be like the little Dutch guy with our finger in the dike. It’s going to blow.”
