When Canada defends the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly at world trade talks, one of its main arguments is that significant concessions already have been made that undermine the board, says the chief Canadian agricultural negotiator.
Steve Verheul told an Ottawa-based international affairs magazine in late June that the European Union and the United States continue to use World Trade Organization talks to exert “a considerable amount of pressure” on the board.
“That would effectively mean we wouldn’t be able to operate the wheat board in the future,” he told the publication Embassy.
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“On the issue of the wheat board’s monopoly, we think we’ve made enough concessions through the financial relationship issues. We don’t see any justification for eliminating monopoly rights that the board enjoys.”
Canada has promised that once a new WTO agreement is signed that eliminates all forms of export subsidy, it will change wheat board rules to get rid of public purse guarantees for initial prices and international credit sales.
Verheul also confirmed that despite years of lobbying on the issue and insisting it has been finding allies, Canada remains isolated at the WTO on the issue of preserving high over-quota tariffs that protect dairy, poultry and egg products from cheap imports.
Many WTO countries insist increased market access must be the result, at least in part, of across-the-board tariff cuts.
Canada is arguing for flexibility in order to increase imports while preserving the over-quota tariffs that give stability to the supply managed sectors.
“We are under pressure to reduce the fairly high tariffs that protect us against imports of those products,” said the negotiator.
“All countries (except Canada) are willing to accept some reduction in those tariffs.”
Meanwhile, Canada will be represented when trade and agriculture ministers from some WTO countries gather mid-July in China to try to find compromise on outstanding issues.
At the end of July, agriculture negotiating committee chair Tim Groser is scheduled to offer his proposals on how the agricultural agreement should deal with the most contentious issues.
