OTTAWA (Staff) — The Liberal majority on the Commons agriculture committee voted down an Opposition attempt to criticize the government for striking a “poor deal” on wheat trade with the Americans.
But they could not shield trade negotiator Mike Gifford from harsh criticism when he appeared before the committee last week to explain the deal.
Gifford insisted, as has his minister Ralph Goodale, that it was a good deal for Canada, guaranteeing almost a two-million-tonne U.S. market for Canadian wheat when the Americans could have given half.
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Opposition MPs said he was overselling a bad deal.
“I’m just mad as hell over the agreement,” Reform MP Leon Benoit told Gifford, Agriculture Canada’s director-general for international trade policy.
“It just shouldn’t have happened … I wonder if this Liberal government really understands free trade.”
Bloc QuŽbecois MP Jean-Paul Marchand castigated the Liberals and Gifford for weakness in the face of American resolve. “It seems to be an awfully bad deal for Canada.”
He described government claims of victory as a farce, like saying: “It is hurting. It’s a black eye but it could have been worse. It could have been several kicks in the rear.”
Gifford defended his performance by insisting it was the best possible deal, given that the terms of the agricultural free trade deal in 1988 do not provide for real free trade because there was not “the political will” to write tougher rules.
Liberal MPs, despite some earlier private grumbling about the political perception of voluntarily accepting a quota, came to the defence of the deal.
Southern Saskatchewan MP Bernie Collins commended Gifford for getting as good a deal as he did.
Prince Edward Island Liberal Wayne Easter, an early critic of the deal, placed the blame on the Americans for being unreasonable rather than on the government for striking a deal.
Reformer Jake Hoeppner was not mollified.
“If you had asked me as a farmer what to do, I would have said: ‘ tear it up. I’m finished with those guys,'” said the southern Manitoba MP.
