Will Hill be Puttin' on the Ritz at WTO?

[parsley]

Somebody at agriville.com has a dandy scent of humor.

Today's headline reads:

"Canada Wheat Board hopes for government support "


Do you suppose Larry Hill will get on the telly asking Gerry Ritz to come over to the hotel and watch a movie and have a, er, cup of tea?

What movie will Hill rent so he can coax support from Ritz? The Godfather?

Parsley

[bduke]

Parsley...Dion is rattling the election sabre again today, and considering the strength of the Ontario and Quebec supply management lobby, I fear the movie will be "The Sting"!

Are you expecting Ritz to play hardball?

My expectations are minimal....Bill

[Kodiak]

According to the Dairy Farmers of Canada, all 4 of the major party leaders - including the present Prime Minister - signed the following declaration in the 2004 Federal election. I expect, and presume, that all politicians always keep their promises. We really wouldn't want it any other way would we?

So do I expect our negotiators or Ministers who are there now to negotiate in a meaningful way? No. They're in a political straightjacket they put themselves into. Our only hope is that Canada becomes even more isolated from the real negotiations and any final decisons. Our position is duplicitous and contradictory, and is an embarrassment.

Only if we’re forced to consider a final deal will the next political decision have to be made that MIGHT trump the sell-out all our political leaders agreed to (below). If it becomes bigger issue than the 14,000 odd dairy guys who are holding the rest of the farming population, and Canadian consumers, for ransom maybe we’ll get something. But it won’t be because Canada made a meaningful contribution to the final outcome.
----------
A Declaration of Support for Maintaining Supply Management, a Fair Agricultural Model
WHEREAS agriculture and farmers are basic to feeding the world;
WHEREAS countries have the basic right to assure the food security of their citizens and the duty to provide fair treatment to those who produce the food;
WHEREAS for over thirty years, the Canadian supply management system, which is based on planning production to match demand, on producer pricing that reflects production costs, as well as on control of imports, has proven that it is a fair agricultural model in the dairy, chicken, turkey, table egg and hatching egg sectors;
WHEREAS this model allows farmers to obtain fair returns from the marketplace, processors to benefit from a stable supply of quality primary material and to realize profits, and consumers to obtain quality products at prices comparable to or lower than the prices in countries that do not practice supply management;
WHEREAS agricultural producers under supply management are basic to the economic vitality and stability of many regions of Canada;
WHEREAS this model causes no distortion of world agricultural markets because it essentially seeks to satisfy the domestic market by avoiding production of surpluses;
WHEREAS this model does not require any government subsidies and therefore represent savings for taxpayers and the government Treasury;
WHEREAS supply management is a future-oriented solution for agriculture that Canada should promote in international forums as a fair agricultural model, particularly for developing countries;
WHEREAS the negotiations underway at the World Trade Organization (WTO) could result in the weakening, or even the disappearance of supply management;
WHEREAS Canada undertook, at the beginning of the Doha Round, to negotiate conditions that would preserve an effective supply management system;
I, THE UNDERSIGNED, _______________________________________ declare:
that I support the maintenance of supply management, a fair agricultural model;
and that I will personally get involved so that, at the end of the WTO negotiations, producers under supply management can continue to meet the needs of Canadian consumers and obtain all their revenue from the marketplace, based on their costs of production, including a fair return on their labour and capital.
___________________________________________ _________________
Signature Date
___________________________________ ______________________________

[parsley]

At the WTO, we've all heard of the Green Room:


"The Green Room

The Green Room refers to a process, rather than a specific location, in which heads of delegation seek consensus informally under the chairmanship of the Director-General.

From 21 to 26 July, roughly 40 Ministers will meet in a Ministerial Green Room in a bid to help find consensus on agriculture and industrial goods trade, while discussing the best way forward in future negotiations on services, rules and intellectual property.

Ministers, or ambassadors or senior officials who meet in the Green Room include the co-ordinators of all major groups in the WTO. This representation ensures that all positions, countries and regions, are represented in the negotiations.

The term “Green Room” has its origins in British theatre and refers to the room where performers would wait when they were not needed on stage.


Green Room meetings serve a useful purpose in that their informal nature allows negotiators to explore new approaches to settling difficult issues.

Ministerial Green Room consultations deal with the most sensitive political issues — including tariff or subsidy cuts, or the degree of flexibility regarding those cuts.


Green Room meetings often run until the early hours of the morning and can stretch out for days. They can also be tense and dramatic settings in which nerves are taut and tempers evident.

When convergence is reached in the Green Room, co-ordinators report back to their groups to relay their accounts of the meeting.

Group members react to these reports and may approve or reject proposals. They could also ask the co-ordinator to go back to the Green Room to seek clarification or more concessions from trading partners.

Sometimes a small number of countries may have specific concerns about what is being proposed. In such cases, the Director-General, or negotiating group chairs or facilitators, consult such members in an effort to accommodate their concerns and thereby enable them to join the consensus."


Maybe Hill is in the Red Room with Cuba, and that's where his notions get endorsed.

Parsley

[parsley]

Saskatoon StarPhoenix
24th of July, 2008

Angela Hall

Western provinces stress importance of trade talks

QUOTE
REGINA -- Some Canadian provinces and agricultural groups remain at odds over what the country should put on the negotiating table as efforts continue to salvage a global trade deal.

But Saskatchewan Agriculture Minister Bob Bjornerud said the four western provinces found some common ground, making a joint appeal this week on the need for a successful outcome to the World Trade Organization talks.

"We are constantly working with different countries . . . trying to get our message from Western Canada on the table," said Bjornerud from Geneva during a teleconference call with reporters in Saskatchewan.

Trade ministers from more than 30 governments are in Geneva for the WTO's Doha negotiations, a process that has spanned seven years.

"The negotiations may be delayed for many years if ministers fail to reach an agreement this week," warns the joint statement from provincial agriculture ministers in Alberta, Saskatchewan, B.C. and Manitoba.

"In the absence of a new agreement, trade distortion and protectionism will continue and worsen."

The ministers say a "strong, rules-based world trading system" is important for growth, especially in the agriculture sector.

However, while international trade is vital for Western Canadian agriculture, provinces to the east also depend heavily on egg, dairy and poultry farms, which fall under Canada's supply management system.

The system manages farmers' production of those commodities as well as regulates imports in order to match supply with demand.

Bjornerud said he's concerned Canada's unwillingness to make concessions on supply management could hamper efforts to get western farmers more access to international markets.

Bjornerud acknowledged that in a "perfect world" all parties in Canada would be in agreement.

"It's not a deal stopper, but I don't think it certainly helps our cause," said Bjornerud, who added other countries at the WTO also have internal divisions.

Meanwhile, farm groups in Canada are also divided on whether the Canadian Wheat Board should be a factor in the talks.

The Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association says the board's monopoly on western wheat and barley exports should be sacrificed if Canada can get deeper cuts to U.S. and European Union farm subsidy programs in return.

"Canada should do all it can to ensure access to export markets is as open and distortion-free as possible," said association chair Mike Bast.


However, the chair of the CWB, Saskatchewan farmer Larry Hill, has said the fate of the Canadian agency should be decided at home, not by the country's international competitors, and pointed out the board has successfully weathered U.S. accusations that it's trade-distorting.

The issue of the CWB also divides western premiers, with Manitoba supportive of the board's monopoly and Alberta and Saskatchewan opposed.


Bjornerud said there have been some positive signals at the WTO, such as an offer by the United States to limit its farm subsidies. UNQUOTE

Do you suppose the CWB told Angela Hall that the CWB Act changed under Goodale to allow wheat and barley imports into Canada, with no tarrifs, and no penalties...but yet the CWB continues to penalize only Western farmers' EXPORTS?

I think not.

Parsley

[davidw]

Kodiak;

That declaration is pretty vague - fair returns?

If there was a declaration that Canada would not agree to anything that did not include an exemption for Canadian suppply management, it would have been more meaningful.

[parsley]

PRESS RELEASE

QUOTE
Grain Growers Urge Canadian Government to Keep the Momentum Building to a Successful Outcome at WTO

(Geneva, Friday, July 25, 2008) – Ross Ravelli, President of the Grain Growers of Canada (GGC) expressed cautious optimism on the progress of the World Trade talks.


“Piece by piece this deal is coming together,” said Ravelli. “While we recognize that this could still go off the rails, nonetheless we are encouraged that the talks are continuing and still moving forward.”

“We understand that the working group, the United States, European Union, Brazil, India, Japan, Australia and China, have agreed to 70-percent cuts in the top band of farm products for industrialized countries. We also understand that that no more than 4 percent of farm tariff lines will be designated as “sensitive” products and that tariff-rate quotas will be based on 4.5 percent of overall domestic consumption.”

“While these points are encouraging, we still need to see major progress on market access issues for Canadian producers,” said Ravelli. “Therefore we are calling on our Government to keep up the pressure at these talks for an aggressive outcome and further that they lean on the informal group of 7 to ensure that this recent momentum continues to build.”

“The Grain Growers of Canada would like to recognize and thank the many Provincial Ag Ministers who were here this week to also encourage a good deal for Canadian farmers.”

WTO talks are expected to continue through the weekend.

Grain Growers Vice-President Jeff Nielsen will be in Geneva until Monday to monitor the situation. He will be available for comment every day.


For more information on the Grain Growers, please visit www.ggc-pgc.ca.



Media contacts: Jeff Nielsen Vice-President
011 41 796155359 (Swiss phone number)
jeffniel@platinum.ca
UNQUOTE


Parsley

[wilagro]

After visiting the GGC website, I will reserve judgement on their activities until I have read more.

Tentatively, I would say that they are representative of the Anti-CWB set that post here continuously and a narrow special-interest group at best.

[Fransisco]

So an organization representing all crops across all of Canada is more of a special interest group than one which only sells western wheat and barley?

By the way the boards own surveys show that over the last ten years 50-60% of their permit book holders want either a voluntary board or a complete open market. Whose views exactly are Hill and company presenting in Geneva? It doesn't sound like the majority of permit book holders to me.

[wilagro]

Fransisco: Lets put it this way...the GGC membership consists of a "power block" of organizations made up of primarily large scale farm operators/operations. This in itself is an indication of a "special interest group".

That is not necessarily bad when it comes to lobbying our federal government and in international trade agreements but the views and interests of the small and medium size farm operation may not be presented and who's views indeed may run counter to the GGC view.

[Fransisco]

If you think the BOARD is representing or is the voice of small and medium size farmers you are sadly mistaken. The board is there for the board and that is it.

90% of farmers get most of their income from exports and trade. 40% of Canada's GDP comes from exports and trade.

The lowering of trade barrier's, subsidies and tariffs around the world would be a good thing for most farmers and for Canada as a whole.

The wheat board is opposed to this because it is a barrier to trade itself. It is by its very nature the quintessential special interest group in Geneva.

[parsley]

Rumor from a sterling source reports that SM5 (Supply Management) are certainly pushing their say and have sent over 40 voices to the WTO, and although some of them have gone home, it is being whispered that new ones are on their way to replace them.


Parsley

[parsley]

Canada will be signing a deal soon, as no deal is not an answer.

Parsley

[parsley]

haven't been on for a while but on this issue I read in the thread above the motion that was unanimously passed in Parliament.
That was then and under another government. Motions are just that, it has no bearing on this government or effect. The idea of getting this done now is it could be several years before talks good restart if they ever do. A bad deal is not wanted either, we need the best possible deal for Canada. Supply management of course wants the best too. So Canada is of split personalities over there for sure.
Got to ask your SM5 neighbours how they can afford such a lobbying effort? what did some one say they had over 45 people over there? wow, I bet it is not a cheep place to be.
I applaude those over there working on my behave as a grain/oilseed producer. If we dont' get a good deal, its going to be hard to survive the next war of export subsidies from the US and EU and no doubt others now.
Erik

[Burbert]

CANADA has never, never, never gotten a good deal on anything. The Americans and Europeans, Asians, even the Afgans sucker us, each and every time. We don't know what we are doing. We play soft ball, not hard ball, never have, never will, cause we are the good guys on the block and the blockheads all at the same time. We continue to give stuff away. Did you notice a press release the other day that said, they believe that there are 40 billion barrels of oil trapped in the Arctic, and that the US and Denmark are struggling for control of it. Where the hell is Canada. Oh forgot to mention, Canada, can have the ice in the Arctic................