Canadian farm leaders are asking prime minister Jean ChrŽtien to take a blunt trade message to the American White House next month: honor the free trade agreement and quit trying to bully Canadian traders.
ChrŽtien travels to Washington in April to meet president Bill Clinton. The farm lobby says it is time the Americans were tuned in about their use and abuse of trade agreements.
In a submission to the Commons foreign affairs committee March 6, Canadian Federation of Agriculture trade spokesperson Don Knoerr accused the Americans of trying to bully Canada, of “harassing” Canadian grain traders and of trying to use trade rules to change Canadian domestic policies they do not like.
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He said freer trade has been good for both countries since 1989, increasing the value of trade several-fold.
But at times, the American administration and food industry seem to have a curious interpretation of the trade rules. They are to be used when they work for American interests and ignored when they do not.
Stick with the agreement
Knoerr said in an interview the U.S. continues to suggest Canada should step outside the trade deals to negotiate trade-offs in access for different commodities.
“They need to get the message,” he said after his meeting with MPs. “Ad hoc horse trading in which we give up something we have a right to under the rules in order to get access for something else is simply not on.”
In his submission to the committee, supported by Prairie Pools Inc., Keystone Agricultural Producers of Manitoba and the Canadian Horticultural Council, Knoerr noted several irritants that ChrŽtien should raise with Clinton.
- On supply management protections, U.S. representatives seem unwilling to accept last year’s trade panel decision that Canada’s tariff protections for dairy, poultry and egg sectors are legal. They have announced they are looking at new ways to challenge Canadian policy.
“From our perspective, the U.S. position on trade in supply-managed products has lost all pretense of legitimacy,” said the CFA brief. “Lacking any legal basis for what they want, they have decided to bully us into submission.”
- In the grain trade, they said the U.S. believes that not only should Canada limit its exports south, but it also should be willing to change the way the Canadian Wheat Board works because Americans do not like it.
Prairie Pools called this “continued harassment” and asked that ChrŽtien demand a truce in this U.S. campaign.
- On sugar, the Americans “want to have their cake and eat it too” by increasing restrictions on Canadian exports of sugar-containing products while continuing to operate a re-export program into Canada which was supposed to have ended more than a year ago.
- In fruits and vegetables, the Americans continue to nickel-and-dime Canadian exporters with threats of trade sanctions, investigations and disputes over inspections, custom and regulations, they said.
Knoerr said part of the problem appears to be that the U.S. food industry does not understand the implications of the trade deals signed by their government, and the rules and obligations those deals impose.
