Like many other countries, Canada found itself under attack at a World Trade Organization agriculture committee last week in Geneva.
But an Ottawa-based trade specialist and consultant said not much should be read into the criticism.
The annual agriculture committee meeting to assess how well countries are implementing obligations contained in the 1994 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade is designed to be negative and critical, Peter Clark said.
“The whole point of this meeting is to have your policies challenged and to ask questions, so many countries find themselves on the hot seat and I don’t see this as all that significant,” he said.
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Clark often does work for Canada’s supply managed agencies.
The WTO included Canada as one of a long list of members that have not been keeping the organization informed about current subsidy and protection policies. More than half of the WTO’s 150 members are delinquent in reporting.
Canada last notified WTO officials about spending levels and tariff administration in 2003. The United States has been even tardier.
The chair of the committee, Uruguay negotiator Valéria Csukasi, told members that timely reporting is important both for monitoring performance but also for judging commitments that countries are offering during negotiations.
“Up-to-date information on domestic support is needed for members to calculate accurately what the effect of proposed cuts would be on actual current payments as distinct from the bound ceilings,” said the WTO. “It is also needed for calculating levels to be used as the base for some reductions.”
During the Sept. 26 meeting, New Zealand challenged Canada’s dairy supply management system, alleging that the complex supply management policy with its special milk classes is undermining New Zealand’s dairy export opportunities and Canada’s WTO commitments.
Australia questioned whether Ottawa’s decision to create a cheese “compositional standards” code was a way to get more money to dairy farmers.
In all cases, Canadian agricultural negotiator Steve Verheul responded.
He told New Zealand that Canada’s dairy policies, including special milk classes, are consistent with WTO commitments.
Verheul told Australia that the compositional standards code will require use of more milk for cheese manufacture and less milk protein substitute in Canadian product. It will add value to Canadian milk used in cheese production, he said.
Clark said New Zealand’s dairy policy criticisms are predictable, even though high world dairy prices mean that country’s exporters are doing well this year.
“New Zealand bitches all the time and I don’t pay much attention to them,” he said. “They are fine unless you scratch their halo somehow.”
