Canada is a trade hypocrite when it criticizes other countries while promoting its own trade distorting policies, a Canadian Alliance MP suggested last week.
It is in no position to criticize the trade protection of other countries because it has its own skeletons, said Alliance agriculture critic Howard Hilstrom.
From supply management and the Canadian Wheat Board, to provisions of the new agricultural policy framework and cattle import restrictions, Canada is a trade distorter, the Manitoba MP and cattle producer said May 8 during a Parliament Hill hearing on trade issues.
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“We have a case here of the pot calling the kettle black,” Hilstrom said.
He was having none of it as trade bureaucrats sat before MPs defending Canada’s complaints about both European Union and U.S. policies that disrupt trade or cause trade or price problems.
To officials who kept insisting Canada has a defensible middle ground position, Hilstrom kept raising complaints.
Under the APF, money will be spent to seed green cover that can then be harvested or fed to cattle. Under the U.S. farm bill, land taken out of production into conservation acreage must remain out of the production chain.
“What we are proposing is promoting production,” he said.
And the Canadian Food Inspection Agency continues to restrict import of American feeder cattle during some seasons, bringing simmering anger from American cattle industry leaders who see Canada having unlimited access to their cattle market. The Canadian Cattlemen’s Association supports the American complaints.
“It gets to the nub of the view of Canada not having clean hands in international trade negotiations and wanting to have it both ways,” Hilstrom said.
He referred to American complaints that the CWB is guilty of subsidizing exports.
“We haven’t seen any evidence that the CWB has a distorting effect on trade,” replied chief Canadian agriculture negotiator Steve Verheul.
Hilstrom was undeterred.
“The U.S. farm bill is something Canada has given up its right to comment on,” said the MP.
Officials insisted Canada’s positions at World Trade Organization talks and against the U.S. farm bill are defensible.
Michael Keenan, Agriculture Canada director general for research and analysis, told MPs that Canada and the U.S. have taken sharply different paths in creating farm policy.
He said the APF is aimed at stabilizing income, increasing competitiveness and moving farmers away from subsidy dependence. The American farm bill is a highly interventionist bill that increases support for nine designated crops, imposes some import restrictions and continues to use loan rate price guarantees to encourage production of traditional crops.
“The farm bill is without question bad agriculture policy,” he said. “It disrupts marketing. It distorts production….The U.S. farm bill is moving backwards to more commodity specific, distorting policies.”
Verheul said Canada’s support of supply management is defensible because it prefers to expand trade in dairy, poultry and egg by increasing minimum access guarantees to allow managed imports rather than reducing over-access tariffs to make import levels less predictable.
Canada’s proposals for domestic subsidy cuts, access improvements and an end of export subsidies represent a reasonable middle ground that could attract support from more extreme positions, he said.
