Some disagree | They fear a push into concessions on supply management
With Canada-European Union trade talks nearing conclusion, the next great Canadian trade debate will revolve around whether to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership Asian negotiation.
Prime minister Stephen Harper has signalled Canada wants to join the talks aimed at trade liberalization in the Pacific-Asia area. Japan also wants to join the nine-nation talks now dominated by the United States.
The U.S. and New Zealand have said a Canadian commitment to negotiate reduced protections for Canada’s supply managed sectors is the price for being allowed into the talks.
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Last week, the Senate agriculture committee heard two distinct versions of the Canadian stakes in the talks and whether they are worth it.
Kathleen Sullivan, executive director of the Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance, told senators March 13 that Canada cannot afford to be outside the talks, particularly if Japan is accepted as a negotiator.
John Weekes, former Canadian ambassador to the World Trade Organization, said Canada should not stay on the sidelines.
“It would be a big mistake for Canada not to try to be there, to influence the outcome of that negotiation and make it one that we would see as representing the kind of agreement that we think makes sense for the 21st century,” he said.
“If we are not there and it does go on and becomes a broader agreement, then at some point we will face the problem of having to join it without having had any say on how it was put together and that would be undesirable.”
He and Sullivan agreed the greatest risk would be if Japan joined and was part of a trade deal that gave TPP members preferential access to their markets that is denied to Canada.
“We would lose our second largest agricultural market in a number of sectors because Japanese trade barriers remain quite high on paper, even if in some cases they have been lowered in practice,” said Weekes.
Ottawa trade consultant Peter Clark, who has represented the supply management, pork and beef sectors in trade disputes, took a counter view. He argued that TPP is simply a way for the U.S. to protect its interests, hoping that other countries will be willing to make concessions.
“The United States has hijacked the TPP.”
He said the U.S. wants Canada to join TPP so that it can win concessions it was not able to win in Canada-U.S. free trade talks, including more access to protected supply managed sectors.
Clark said New Zealand is adamant that Canada can enter the TPP negotiation only if it agrees to negotiate more access for dairy products. It was not an entry price imposed on others, including the U.S.
“I will offer a solution to New Zealand,” he said. “If the Americans, who import three percent of their dairy consumption, were to import six percent like we do, everyone in New Zealand would be driving Rolls Royces.”
Sullivan said a TPP agreement could be a “21st century trade deal (that) deals with things like non-tariff barriers, phytosanitary issues.”
Clark fired back.
“This 21st century high quality trade deal is hogwash,” he said. “It is not free trade. It is protecting American property rights. It is protecting American investors.”
