FREDERICTON – As it prepares a bargaining strategy for the next round of world trade negotiations, the federal government sometimes appears more interested in endorsing the theory of free trade than in analyzing its implications back home, says a farm leader.
Bob Friesen, a Manitoba poultry farmer and vice-president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, said last week the Liberal government sometimes fancies itself in a foot race of free traders, trying to impress other countries.
“There is almost a competitive trade philosophy around the world,” Friesen said, after presenting a trade policy report to the summer board meeting of the CFA July 24.
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“For some countries, it is a competition to see who can be the biggest free trader without stopping to think what the implications are back home.”
During the CFA board discussion, there were complaints about “balloons being floated” by senior trade officials suggesting that Canada go to the next round of World Trade Organization talks with an aggressive proposal for reduced import barriers.
John Kolk, chair of Chicken Farmers of Canada, complained the government has said a trade negotiating position will not be decided until next year, after extensive consultation with farmers.
Yet now, “balloons are being floated which are not helpful.”
Others complained the federal government still has not figured out that its aggressive campaign of cutting domestic farm subsidies since the last trade agreement in 1994 has left Canadian farmers vulnerable to unfair trade competition from farmers in other countries who receive more support from their governments.
Kolk said liberalized trade is not a goal in itself.
Consider each sector
While CFA supports reduced barriers to trade, he said any Canadian negotiating position should flow from an understanding of what all Canadian sectors need, rather than from a free trade ideology. Objectives should precede positions.
John Pearson, acting president of Alberta Wheat Pool, agreed.
“This is not the first time our government has established positions without clearly understanding goals, in order to impress people around the world,” he said.
The CFA board directed president Jack Wilkinson to arrange a meeting with agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief next month to tell him the government should not be opening Canadian farmers to full international competition when levels of domestic support are unequal between countries.
“We have raised this point for years and the government has tried to brush it off as not a trade issue, but we think it is very much a trade issue,” said Friesen.
“Let’s participate in trade liberalization to the extent that the playing field in terms of domestic support is level and making sure that the interests of all our sectors are being taken into consideration.”
