The House of Commons international trade committee has recommended that the federal government sharply increase spending on trade negotiation and promotion, become more aggressive in negotiating trade deals and do what it takes to get world trade talks back on track.
Opposition New Democrats and Bloc Québécois MPs saw that as a call to sacrifice supply management protections in the interests of a trade deal and denounced the report supported by Conservatives and Liberals.
The committee, chaired by Alberta Conservative Leon Benoit, tabled only its recommendations before Parliament adjourned March 30 for a two-week Easter break.
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It promised to submit the justifications for its 22 recommendations after Parliament resumes April 16.
The key recommendation on World Trade Organization negotiations was that Canada cannot afford to see it fail.
“Recognizing the benefit from the expanded access to global markets that a successful Doha Round (of WTO talks) could secure, the government of Canada should take a leadership role in ensuring the completion of a broad and ambitious outcome to the current WTO negotiations,” said the committee’s Conservative and Liberal majority.
But Canadian agriculture negotiator Steve Verheul has made it clear that any WTO deal will include a weakening of supply management protections because Canada is the only one of 150 WTO members to oppose any sensitive product tariff reductions.
The government has instructed Verheul to refuse any demand for reductions in protections, while pleading with supply management leaders to allow negotiators to be more flexible. It also has vowed to sign any WTO deal, no matter what the rules on sensitive products end up being.
NDP and BQ critics on the committee quickly filed objections to the majority call for Canadian leadership at the WTO, insisting it was a formula for supply management compromise.
“Canada should be leading in promoting supply management to other nations,” said NDP trade critic Peter Julian. He said Canada must defend the concept and export it as “a blueprint for developing nations who seek to develop counterweights to the domination of transnational agribusinesses.”
The BQ minority report insisted the majority recommendation instructed the government to “make painful concessions.”
It said that is unacceptable to rural Quebec.
“The Bloc Québécois is very concerned and reiterates that its position remains unchanged,” said the report. “Don’t touch supply management.”
The committee majority said Canada should increase its spending on trade negotiation and promotion by 50 percent.
It called for aggressive efforts to sign bilateral free trade agreements with some European, South American and Asian countries “as quickly as is practical.”
And the committee said Canada should identify markets where Canadian exporters operate at a disadvantage and it should negotiate “defensive free trade agreements that prevent Canada from being shut out of those markets.”
In many countries including India and China, Canadian competitors have negotiated lower trade barriers or tariffs than are applied against Canadian products, hurting export interests.
The committee said the crown corporation Export Development Canada should have greater freedom to promote Canadian products in emerging markets.
It also called on Ottawa to develop more aggressive trade plans to crack the Chinese and Indian markets, including better promotion of Canadian products “and greater involvement of the Chinese and Indian diasporas in Canada.”
The committee also encouraged better government-to-government trade promotion and political trips that would include members of the international trade committee.
The Liberal government of Paul Martin and the Conservative government of Stephen Harper have dropped the “Team Canada” trade trips that were a feature of the decade of governments led by Liberal Jean Chrétien.
