OTTAWA – An influential lobby group representing private exporters has told the new government it should change the Crow Benefit method of payment as part of an overhaul of policies on exports.
A spokesman for the Canadian Exporters’ Association said the prairie pools’ exporting arm, XCAN Grain, and also a member of the board, is a dissenter. However, that dissent was not officially noted last week when the association told the new Liberal government it should rewrite the Western Grain Transportation Act.
Exporter vice-president Jim Moore said in an interview “the majority of our members believe a change in the method of payment would help exporters and increase the value of exports by emphasizing value-added. An exception to this is our co-op members.”
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In its brief to the government, the association said the Liberals should pick up where the Conservatives left off.
Pay farmers directly
“The Western Grain Transportation Act deserves special attention,” says the exporters report. “There are conflicting opinions as to whether or not the WGTA is an effective use of taxpayers’ funds. The proposed amendments tabled last year to increase efficiency in supporting western farmers and to remove the bias against value-added agricultural exports should be followed up on as a matter of priority.” Those proposals included a change in the method of payment to send the money directly to farmers.
Without being specific, the exporters’ group recommended that the new government “improve the effectiveness of the Western Grain Transportation Act.”
The exporters also waded into the supply management debate, urging reform of marketing boards to lower prices that farmers charge food processors. Processors could increase their exports, said the group, but this means they must be able to buy agricultural inputs at world prices.
And new world trade rules that will substitute tariffs for import quotas give the government an opportunity to reform the mar-keting board system “in ways which are socially responsible.”
The group, representing firms that sell billions of dollars of Canadian goods abroad and headed by former Liberal trade minister Gerald Regan, makes a number of other recommendations to the government.
It urges that work continue to negotiate anti-dumping and subsidy rules within the North American free trade deal, that Canada seek trade liberalization deals with other areas of the world, that the goods and services tax be changed to compensate for indirect taxes on exports and that Canada establish export financing schemes comparable to those offered to competitors.
And the exporters’ group recommended that food sales embargoes be avoided unless other countries also take part, Canadian exporters are consulted and Canadians hurt by the embargo be compensated.
“Canadian business needs to be assured that it will not fall victim to sanction policies over which it has no influence and that it will not be economically penalized when it seeks out foreign markets,” says the exporters’ brief.
