Despite opposition claims that trade minister David Emerson has revealed a Conservative willingness to abandon supply management protections at trade talks, the government is insisting its support for the system remains steadfast.
“Our supply management system is not on the negotiating table. This government has consistently defended our supply managed sectors at the WTO (World Trade Organization),” Emerson said in a Dec. 21 joint statement with agriculture minister Chuck Strahl that was drafted in the prime minister’s office.
“Agriculture has become the main focus of the Doha Round. Canada strongly supports the supply management system used in the dairy, poultry and egg sectors, just as other countries have been supporting their own sensitive sectors.”
Read Also
Spider mites big soybean problem this season
Spider mite issues have been geographically limited but significant where they occur, said John Gavloski, an entomologist with Manitoba Agriculture.
The government was in defensive mode after Emerson told The Western Producer in a December interview that Canada is going to have to become a more aggressive trade negotiator that will no longer allow industries needing protection to dictate trade policy that denies competitive export sectors more market access.
“We’ve got sectors, sensitivities and we’ve always deferred to this industry or that industry that felt that they couldn’t cope with free trade, and so we tended to put aside agreements that were largely in this country’s best interests but because of narrow sensitivities, we just didn’t bite the bullet,” Emerson said.
“I’ll probably get hell for this, but I can envision a time where we are just going to have to say to some resistant sectors that there is a national interest and we should work with sectors to see if they can with some modest support from government transition to a globally competitive stature or we’re going to just have to go through the painful adjustment. So at some point, the status quo is not viable in my opinion.”
The trade minister was asked if supply management was one of these sensitive sectors.
“There is no doubt that we have defended very strongly our sensitivities in the supply managed sectors and at some point, you have to look at what that’s costing you in terms of gains and in my opinion, Canada must have offensive gains over time,” he said. “We cannot be for long sustained periods of time be defensive traders or we will wither and die the death of a thousand cuts. And we won’t win. We can protect but we won’t win.”
When the comments were published, government telephone lines lit up and on a quiet day before the Christmas break, the communications team in the prime minister’s office went into action with a message to Conservative MPs emphasizing government support for supply management; then came the statement from the two ministers making the PMO points.
Liberal agriculture critic Wayne Easter saw it differently. He said it was a harbinger of the Conservatives’ real intention to weakly defend supply management’s high tariffs and import restrictions.
“I think it shows where the government wants to go over the long term,” Easter said. “I take Emerson at his word. I think the rest of them, including the statement dictated to him, are deceptive. This government has a long-term ideological goal of sacrificing supply management to the interests of American agribusiness.”
Canadian Federation of Agriculture president Bob Friesen said farmers have reason to be nervous.
He said that with the Conservative campaign against the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly, farmers are concerned that the government then will turn its sights on supply management marketing board monopolies.
Friesen said prime minister Stephen Harper had to clarify the government’s position not just on supply management but also on the three pillars that allow it to exist.
“Does his government still support Canada’s balanced trade position on increasing market access, eliminating export subsidies and preserving the right of farmers in all countries to chose orderly marketing systems?”
The third point requires maintenance of high over-quota tariffs.
Instead of committing to those three pillars, the government statement said: “Our supply management system is not on the negotiating table.”
It was bad political news for the Conservatives trying to win or maintain rural seats in Eastern Canada by insisting support of supply management was uncontestable.
A senior Ontario egg marketing system official immediately sent out a message to industry players arguing that while technically correct that “no entity called supply management is on the WTO negotiating table, what is on the table are at least two of the three pillars of supply management: import controls and market access. So don’t be lulled into a false sense of security.”
Meanwhile, former chief Canadian agricultural trade negotiator Mike Gifford, who spent years defending Canada’s position, now says any WTO deal must include some Canadian concessions on cutting triple digit over-quota supply management tariffs.
“Clearly, cuts in those tariffs will not be as great as the general depth of cuts,” Gifford said. “But equally clearly, it is well understood in WTO talks that sensitive products will have to be subject to some reduction in tariff protection if there is to be a deal. There will be no exemptions.”
Canada’s position in Geneva to date has been that it rejects any cut in over-quota tariffs.
