Dairy farmer Bill Swan from Warren, Man., was taken aback when he heard that his provincial New Democratic Party government was demanding that the federal government weaken its defence of supply management in world trade talks to help prairie export sectors.
“We had a unanimous resolution in the legislature supporting Canada’s balanced position so yes, I was surprised and disappointed when I heard that,” the chair of Dairy Farmers of Manitoba said. “I guess they had been lobbied by other people but to abandon our position now is wrong and to say we stand alone is wrong.”
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Swan said the western provincial premiers and agriculture ministers who issued a joint plea for more flexibility in Canada’s position at the World Trade Organization were na•ve to assume Canadian concessions on supply management protections or the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly would lead to other countries making concessions on their positions.
“I simply do not believe making those concessions would give the exporters any more market access,” he said.
Canada’s supply management system protects dairy, poultry and egg sectors from foreign competition by charging high tariffs on imported products that exceed set limits. Domestic supply is controlled by production quotas.
At the end of May, western premiers meeting in Gimli, Man., said Ottawa should move off its “no compromise” position on supply management protections at the WTO talks because it is hurting prospects for a deal that helps western agricultural exporters, such as grain and oilseed producers.
A letter from western agriculture ministers to the federal government complained that Ottawa was taking an “extreme inflexible position” on supply management protections that could jeopardize a WTO deal.
That western political lobby drew sharp criticism last week from farm groups and politicians who insist Canada can support exporters and defend import-vulnerable industries.
“If the western premiers actually get what they are asking for, they will be responsible for killing the only sector of agriculture that’s currently making money, is not reliant on taxpayers for ad hoc payments and is benefiting consumers,” Alberta dairy farmer and National Farmers Union provincial co-ordinator Jan Slomp of Rimbey said in a public rebuke of the western political position.
He said Canada has a history of compromising on policies that work for farmers in return for unfulfilled hopes that other countries will compromise their policies that hurt Canadian farmers.
“We should not be surprised that the European Union and the United States do not use this type of negotiating tactic.”
In Ottawa, Liberal agriculture critic Wayne Easter, a former Prince Edward Island dairy farmer and NFU president, also weighed in on the western lobby.
The prairie political statements from premiers and agriculture ministers “have contributed to the undermining of our supply management position and have only served to create the sense that the western premiers are prepared to play one agricultural group off against another,” he said.
“This is not the direction agricultural policy, specifically trade policy, should be going.”
The prairie provincial politicians have insisted they were not trying to undermine supply management but only to make sure that defence of high over-quota tariffs did not undermine sectors dependent on exports.
