IF prime minister-in-waiting Paul Martin and those who aspire to be his agriculture minister were watching the news from Cancœn, Mexico, last week, one message should have been clear.
They are about to inherit a substantial political problem on the trade front.
World Trade Organization talks continue in Geneva, despite the collapse of negotiations Sept. 14, and a new agriculture text is on the table. It pits Canadian farm sector against Canadian farm sector according to their export or domestic interests.
Barring a negotiating miracle at Geneva that allows Canada to maintain its traditional “balanced” stance of supporting both more market access for exporters and continued protection for import-sensitive sectors, someday the next government will have to make a choice:
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Does it sign a deal that is supported by exporters and commercial interests in the broader Canadian economy but infuriates supply management, or does it walk away?
It is impossible to imagine a Liberal government refusing to sign a WTO deal, no matter what the damage to supply management. These Liberals could teach the free trade-initiating Tories a thing or two about serving the needs of international capital and their local branch plant representatives.
But still, there are politics to manage.
Trade minister Pierre Pettigrew loves to talk about trade as a “win-win” and how they approach the world with a “Team Canada” agenda.
Well, on this agriculture file in this WTO round, there is no “Team Canada.”
In the last trade round, the pretense was maintained by a liberal use of ambiguity and a lot of hard work to maintain an uneasy alliance between Canadian agricultural sectors with different visions and interests. In the end, both lost some.
The Canadian Federation of Agriculture has tried to maintain that coalition as it argues that a proper trade deal can serve the interests of its export members like Saskatchewan Wheat Pool and the Canadian Pork Council and its domestic members like the supply management sectors.
But that attempt at Canadian compromise is being pushed aside by a new aggressiveness in some of the export-dependent sectors and companies, symbolized by the increasingly influential Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance.
Compromise isn’t a favoured word among this group that feels export interests have too long been undermined by Canadian support of domestic protectionists.
When CAFTA president Ted Menzies was asked about implications of a trade deal that weakens supply management protections, he replied: “That’s acceptable to us. That’s our ambition, to reduce protection.”
The wind is in CAFTA’s sails after Cancœn and that means Martin and company will have to decide whether it is wise to continue the political fiction that Canada’s trade negotiation goals can realistically satisfy both agricultural interests.
Supply management farmers will be insisting on guarantees of support from Liberal MPs in Quebec and Ontario who make up the backbone of the Liberal majority.
Instead of trying to be all things to all people, Martin and his advisers would be wise to decide early whether to make promises to supply management they likely won’t be able to keep or send the signal that changes are coming and the government will try to minimize the transition pain.
