WHEN Canadian agriculture negotiators sit down in Geneva early next year to continue talks aimed at crafting new international trade rules, they will find two Canadian farm lobby demands particularly difficult to achieve.
Their success in winning on these two items could well determine how any final World Trade Organization agreement will sell in the Canadian farm constituency.
Item 1: Negotiators have been told by Canadian farmers to demand credit for the deep and WTO-unnecessary cuts the Canadian government made after the 1994 agreement.
The last world trade pact required a minimum level of cuts in domestic support (36 percent from 1986-88 levels over six years) and levels of subsidized exports (21 percent).
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The United States and the European Union lived up to the letter of the law, cutting domestic subsidies only as much as required. Canada ran with the spirit of the deal and satisfied domestic budget-cutting needs by slashing supports far beyond the requirement.
Now, farmers are insisting that negotiators get a payback by forcing the high-subsidizers to cut far more than Canada in any new subsidy reduction deal.
In light of the aggressive stance the U.S. and EU took in Qatar at the launch, and are sure to take in Geneva, this is not going to be an easy sell. Why should Canadian farmers be compensated for the effects of deliberate decisions of their government to cut deeper than required, they will ask.
Late in the Doha meeting, a senior Canadian official said the issue of credits for cuts had not been raised and Canada made no attempt to insert the principle.
“We’re here to get the talks off the ground and not to figure out the numbers or formulas that will be applied at the end,” he said.
Canadian Federation of Agriculture president Bob Friesen said later he accepted the explanation, but put the negotiators on notice.
“Farmers insist there be some credit for Canada’s deeper cuts,” he said. “There is no way you can start all countries from the same point and expect those who have already cut beyond other countries to be satisfied. I’m confident our negotiators can manage that.”
While they are pushing that stone up the hill, Canada’s negotiators are also being asked to walk a tightrope.
Item 2: While promoting substantial cuts in other countries’ protective tariffs, they will have to insist that Canada’s over-quota tariffs for supply managed sectors be largely exempt.
Those powerful sectors will insist on it, demanding that Canada force other countries to “clean up” their cluttered minimum access rules.
If other countries met Canada’s five percent minimum access, world trade in dairy products would increase by more than 50 percent, said Richard Doyle of Dairy Farmers of Canada. There is no need to touch over-quota tariffs.
This will be the position Canada carries into the talks but European and American officials will denounce it as trade hypocrisy and insist that tariff cuts, if they come, must apply to all.
Amid the mountain of contentious issues facing Canada’s frontline trade warriors, these will be two of the toughest.
