A free trade deal negotiated earlier this year between Canada and Costa Rica and rushed through a House of Commons committee last week poses a serious threat to Canada’s sugar industry and Alberta’s sugar beet sector, industry officials said last week.
It would gradually end sugar tariffs between the two countries, giving Canada tariff-free access for 4,000 tonnes of sugar within eight years and Costa Rica 40,000 tonnes of access to Canada.
Bruce Webster of the Canadian Sugar Beet Producers’ Association told MPs that sugar access should be dealt with through World Trade Organization rules, not country-to-country free trade deals.
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Along with sugar refiners, Webster worried that other Central American countries with much larger sugar industries will want the same deal from Canada.
That would result in a flood of cheap sugar, to the detriment of Canadian refiners and probably the death of the sugar beet sector and the refining jobs it creates in Taber, Alta.
“We think replicating this agreement would be very detrimental to the sugar beet industry,” Webster said.
Sandra Marsden, president of the Canadian Sugar Institute, was more blunt.
“This agreement will set a precedent for further agreements,” she told MPs Oct. 17.
“We strongly oppose inclusion of sugar in the Costa Rica agreement. This is a huge problem for us.”
Opposition MPs on the committee took up the sugar cause but at the end of the day, with the Liberal majority in favour, the bill was approved and by week’s end, it had been sent back to the Commons for final debate and approval later this autumn.
Government officials told the committee the agreement will be good for Canadian agriculture and other exporters, opening up new markets, albeit in a relatively small economy.
Canada-Costa Rican trade is small potatoes. Total trade is worth $270 million annually, with $100 million worth of product shipped from Canada and $170 million imported.
Claude Carriere, director general of trade policy for the foreign affairs department, noted that Costa Rica does not have a sugar refinery so it will not be able to take advantage of the new access.
New Democrat Svend Robinson said a refinery could be built.
“If this agreement was treated as a template for future agreements, we would strongly oppose that,” said the Vancouver area MP.
Rogers Sugar employs 180 workers at a Vancouver plant.
Dan LaFrance, speaking for Lantic Sugar and Rogers Sugar, said increased imports from Central America would come through Vancouver, competing directly with Rogers product.
“That is the most vulnerable,” he said. “The Taber plant will not survive if the border is opened to this competition.”
