Fools of the trade
Will Verboven - Monday,13 February 2006
Canada's schizophrenic agriculture trade policy proved its value once again at December's World Trade Organization discussions in Hong Kong. Essentially nothing was achieved by Canadian negotiators, which caused then prime minister Paul Martin to declare that the discussions were a victory for Canada. How typically Liberal to see no progress as a positive--but then this is during an election when the nonsensical is treated with reverence by political parties.
Trade negotiations are pretty dull stuff to most citizens, but they do affect Canada considerably as we are primarily a trading nation. Of all trade discussions, the most bewildering are those that involve agriculture and the Canadian position is by far the most conniving of any country. The Canadian position is so manipulative that the Canadian agriculture commodity organizations that could be affected by WTO discussions even send delegations to tag along with Canadian negotiators because no one trusts what Ottawa says or does at these trade sessions. Apparently, the role of these myriad lobby groups is to put pressure on those negotiators whenever they stray from a perceived trade-policy line.
Canadian negotiators at these events must feel flattered by all the attention--even though it does cause one to wonder about the integrity of these illustrious government trade experts. You would assume that all the affected groups would have discussed their trade concerns with government negotiators well before the actual WTO meetings. But therein lies the problem: the federal government wants to please everyone.
The Canadian position on agricultural trade is to appease every farm commodity group, so their approach is to say yes to free trade and no to free trade at the same time. The feds want to placate the free traders of the livestock, oilseed and cereal businesses, who are located mainly in the west. But most of all, it wants to protect the dairy, poultry and egg-grower non-free traders in the east, mostly located in highly sensitive Quebec. They also want to protect the Canadian Wheat Board.
Clearly, Canadian negotiators are fibbing to someone about their commitment to free trade, which is why no one trusts them and everyone knows that someone will be doublecrossed or sacrificed on the trade negotiation altar. The real problem is that Canadian agricultural trade policy is outdated and based on the dumb notion that the agricultural trade elephants of the world, the U.S. and the European Union, are going to change their self-serving farm trade and support policies. Neither has done so in the past 40 years, save for throwing out some crumbs to distract yapping dogs at trade negotiations.
For example, the trading giants make promises that they will change their export and domestic subsidies, both of which distort world trade. At the same time, the EU has stated that their rigid Common Agriculture Policy support programs will stay in place until 2013, when they will be changed from farm production subsidies to direct income subsidies. The U.S. is, at present, holding regional meetings to review their farm bill, the source of all their agricultural subsidies-- something they do every five years just before renewing the bill again. It would appear that the two giants only pay lip service to the idea of agricultural free trade--though the evidence of that has eluded the brightest trade negotiators in the Canadian government.
If there is ever going to be common sense and peace in Canadian agricultural trade policy it needs to follow the policies of the U.S. and the EU and just admit subsidies are a stubborn fact of life in commodity production--here and elsewhere. Canada is already partially there with many of the present farm support and subsidy policies we have. The feds make these programs convoluted and try to disguise them to not appear obvious subsidizers. They don't fool anyone.
The next step is for Canada to enter into bilateral agricultural trade discussions directly with the Europeans. There are markets there for Canadian farm products that are not being exploited, simply because of the outdated and pointless "yes, but no" trade position taken by Canada at the WTO.
Perhaps such an approach will also put an end to the WTO meeting spectacle, where the largest government and non-government delegation of all the 120 participants is from Canada.
Will Verboven - Monday,13 February 2006
Canada's schizophrenic agriculture trade policy proved its value once again at December's World Trade Organization discussions in Hong Kong. Essentially nothing was achieved by Canadian negotiators, which caused then prime minister Paul Martin to declare that the discussions were a victory for Canada. How typically Liberal to see no progress as a positive--but then this is during an election when the nonsensical is treated with reverence by political parties.
Trade negotiations are pretty dull stuff to most citizens, but they do affect Canada considerably as we are primarily a trading nation. Of all trade discussions, the most bewildering are those that involve agriculture and the Canadian position is by far the most conniving of any country. The Canadian position is so manipulative that the Canadian agriculture commodity organizations that could be affected by WTO discussions even send delegations to tag along with Canadian negotiators because no one trusts what Ottawa says or does at these trade sessions. Apparently, the role of these myriad lobby groups is to put pressure on those negotiators whenever they stray from a perceived trade-policy line.
Canadian negotiators at these events must feel flattered by all the attention--even though it does cause one to wonder about the integrity of these illustrious government trade experts. You would assume that all the affected groups would have discussed their trade concerns with government negotiators well before the actual WTO meetings. But therein lies the problem: the federal government wants to please everyone.
The Canadian position on agricultural trade is to appease every farm commodity group, so their approach is to say yes to free trade and no to free trade at the same time. The feds want to placate the free traders of the livestock, oilseed and cereal businesses, who are located mainly in the west. But most of all, it wants to protect the dairy, poultry and egg-grower non-free traders in the east, mostly located in highly sensitive Quebec. They also want to protect the Canadian Wheat Board.
Clearly, Canadian negotiators are fibbing to someone about their commitment to free trade, which is why no one trusts them and everyone knows that someone will be doublecrossed or sacrificed on the trade negotiation altar. The real problem is that Canadian agricultural trade policy is outdated and based on the dumb notion that the agricultural trade elephants of the world, the U.S. and the European Union, are going to change their self-serving farm trade and support policies. Neither has done so in the past 40 years, save for throwing out some crumbs to distract yapping dogs at trade negotiations.
For example, the trading giants make promises that they will change their export and domestic subsidies, both of which distort world trade. At the same time, the EU has stated that their rigid Common Agriculture Policy support programs will stay in place until 2013, when they will be changed from farm production subsidies to direct income subsidies. The U.S. is, at present, holding regional meetings to review their farm bill, the source of all their agricultural subsidies-- something they do every five years just before renewing the bill again. It would appear that the two giants only pay lip service to the idea of agricultural free trade--though the evidence of that has eluded the brightest trade negotiators in the Canadian government.
If there is ever going to be common sense and peace in Canadian agricultural trade policy it needs to follow the policies of the U.S. and the EU and just admit subsidies are a stubborn fact of life in commodity production--here and elsewhere. Canada is already partially there with many of the present farm support and subsidy policies we have. The feds make these programs convoluted and try to disguise them to not appear obvious subsidizers. They don't fool anyone.
The next step is for Canada to enter into bilateral agricultural trade discussions directly with the Europeans. There are markets there for Canadian farm products that are not being exploited, simply because of the outdated and pointless "yes, but no" trade position taken by Canada at the WTO.
Perhaps such an approach will also put an end to the WTO meeting spectacle, where the largest government and non-government delegation of all the 120 participants is from Canada.