A food industry export lobby has warned MPs not to be seduced by a supply management sector proposal that world trade can be expanded by increasing regulated trade rather than lowering tariffs.
In late October, a coalition of poultry groups told the House of Commons agriculture committee that the focus of World Trade Organization talks should be to require all countries to open at least five percent of their domestic market in each commodity to imports.
David Fuller, chair of Chicken Farmers of Canada, said a guaranteed tariff rate quota, or TRQ, of five percent would allow more exports and better production planning than current proposals before the WTO that would cut over-quota tariffs used by poultry and dairy industries to protect supply management.
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On Nov. 4, the Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance, representing some farm groups and corporate players in the food industry, said that argument is nonsense.
“Our members accepted TRQs in (the previous WTO round) as a transition from quantitative restrictions and import bans to a system of tariff-only trade,” said CAFTA past-president and Ontario soybean grower Liam McCreery. “It’s important to remember that TRQs were not created to facilitate trade. They were created to keep tariffs high and to restrict the amount of access countries were required to provide. They are not and never were meant to be a tool for liberalizing trade.”
He said most Canadian food exporters deal with countries that import more than five percent of their market but still maintain high tariffs to discourage competition. Tariff cuts would open more market access.
And in many markets, food consumption is not increasing.
“Restricting Canadian exporters to five percent of declining or stagnant consumption is not an effective way to increase access,” he said.
However, while clearly taking aim at supply management’s trade proposal, McCreery refused to be drawn into criticism of the sector and its need for protective tariffs.
Time after time, MPs asked if CAFTA was not uncomfortable with the government’s insistence it will negotiate both increased access to foreign markets and continued protection for some import-sensitive domestic sectors.
Canadian Alliance MP Howard Hilstrom asked if CAFTA has lobbied Canada to drop its protectionist goals at the WTO.
“We don’t go down and say, protect a sector,” replied McCreery. “We go down and talk about the sectors that we represent. That’s our job and our mandate. Our mandate is not to talk about domestic issues.”
He said CAFTA’s issue is not supply management or marketing boards, but trade expansion.
Then Hilstrom asked if Canada can have it both ways.
“That’s up to the ability of the negotiators of the government of Canada,” said the CAFTA past-president. “We are looking after our interests for our exporters.”
Try as they might, MPs could not move him off that position.
However, CAFTA’s position that the role of WTO talks is to reduce all tariffs as much as possible would damage the supply management system. Supply management leaders are hostile to the CAFTA position.
