Canadian farmers should not be left guessing about the implications for them and their programs when the next world trade deal is signed, says federal agriculture minister Andy Mitchell.
He also said the deal must be transparent enough to allow easy judgment about whether signatories are living up to their commitments.
His comments are a response to farmer complaints that some of the implications of the last world trade deal in 1994 were not clear Ñ the 1995 end of the Crow Benefit transportation subsidy, for example Ñ and that not all countries were as diligent in meeting their obligations as was Canada.
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“Agreements need to be transparent (and) everybody needs to understand what it is they have agreed to and particularly that Canadian producers understand exactly and are comfortable with what others have agreed to,” Mitchell said in the House of Commons before taking the same message to the Dairy Farmers of Canada convention Feb. 8.
“Besides achieving those objectives, it is important that we have an agreement that is measurable and is transparent in terms of its implementation.”
In an interview after his speech to dairy farmers, Mitchell would not concede that Canada signed in 1994 a world trade agreement that its negotiators and politicians did not fully understand and whose implications were not assessed. It is a charge made often by farm groups, which insist Canadian farmers received little from a deal that was written by and favoured the United States and the European Union.
“I’m not going to say that but what I’m reflecting is what producers tell me and I think it makes sense that as you sign agreements you have a clear understanding of what they are and that they have contained in them structures you can measure so you can see exactly what it is you have signed onto and you can see over time if you’ve been able to accomplish the goals you have set out,” he said.
“I think it is important it be as straight forward as it possibly can be. I’m not going to speak to how we may or may have not done things in the past but I have responsibility for negotiations now and that’s how I want to see things done.”
Canadian Federation of Agriculture president Bob Friesen shows no reluctance in critiquing the failures of the 1994 trade negotiation, including its unexpected consequences.
“There is no question about it,” he said.
“On a number of issues … they (Canadian negotiators) did not know the implications of what they were signing.”
He said it led to Canada making many more program and support concessions than competitor countries.
“In many areas, our negotiators took at face value arrangements that were written to help others,” Friesen said.
