To achieve its avowed goal of gaining better market access for Canadian agricultural exporters, the federal government will have to step up its effort and its investment, says a coalition of industry groups.
It will have to invest more time, money, effort, political and bureaucratic capital, said the group of livestock exporters that met in late January to hammer out proposals for the government’s recently announced Agriculture Canada market access secretariat.
They say creating the secretariat will be just the good first step. And they want industry to be included in planning the design of the government’s trade strategy.
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As a template, they looked to trade promotion strategies in Australia, New Zealand and the United States and concluded Canada has not been doing it right.
“We support greater intergovernment and industry co-ordination on market access initiatives,” the group wrote to agriculture minister Gerry Ritz Jan. 23. “We believe the secretariat can play a vital role in achieving this objective.”
Last week, Canadian Beef Export Federation president Ted Haney said he hopes the department invites industry representatives for a session on how industry needs the trade initiative to be structured.
The industry group, including cattle, hog, packer and sheep groups, called on Ottawa to make a significant commitment to the file, including creation of a new cabinet trade sub-committee, a bureaucracy dedicated to the campaign and a new position of Canadian Food Inspection Agency vice-president of market access and international affairs.
In fact, the industry’s assertion that CFIA and its veterinarians should become more involved in trade promotion likely will be the most controversial of the industry proposals.
It said that the mandate of the CFIA in helping sell the safety of the Canadian food system to foreign buyers is cloudy.
“Roles of government and industry need to be discussed and clarified within industry and government consultative groups,” said a discussion paper sent to Agriculture Canada. “This is a longstanding issue which should be resolved as quickly as possible.”
The discussion paper said that in Australia, government veterinary counselors are considered invaluable allies for exporters as they speak on behalf of the industry to potential importers.
“In Canada, these same positions have very limited involvement with industry and the role of vet counselors is less engaged in market access issues.”
They recommended that Canada’s government veterinarians become fully integrated into market access negotiation teams.
But industry also conceded that aligning CFIA too closely with trade promotion efforts could be seen as undermining its reputation as a neutral third party food safety regulator.
The specialized information about the credibility of the inspection system that can only be delivered by a veterinarian must still be available when market access negotiations are underway, they argued.
“Alternate approaches to deliver this information must be identified if there are valid reasons to conclude that there is a potential conflict between the role of a science-based regulator who is officially ‘neutral’ and the need to promote Canada’s systems,” said the industry discussion paper sent to the department. “This may involve relocating specific functions and technical specialists to (Agriculture Canada) where this work could potentially be accommodated.”
The group also recommended that the government sell the need for more attention to foreign market access by promoting the role of agricultural exports in the Canadian economy.
And it noted that while use of electronic export certificates was proposed in 1998 when CFIA was created, old-fashioned paper certificates are still the norm a decade later.
