Earlier here, I’d posted a link to an article by Mike Gifford, who once represented Canada in international agricultural trade negotiations, in which he argued that Canada’s poultry and dairy producers could be in for some disruptive shocks as the next round of international trade talks concludes.
Today, as thousands of farmers demonstrate on Parliament Hill, Agriculture Minister Chuck Strahl responded to the suggestion that the supply management system which sustains Canada’s dairy and poultry industry may be dismantled as the price Canada must pay in order to convince other countries to dismantle their export subsidy regime which hurts Canadian beef, pork, and oilseed farmers.
Here’s what Strahl had to say:
Well, my understanding is that the what my negotiators have told me and they are over there every other week right now as they get start to put things down on paper for proposals for the entire WTO, basically every country has what they call sensitive products. They have things that they have designated. In our case, it is the supply managed industries. It is an industry that has proven very effective here in Canada. In our opinion, it doesn’t distort world trade because it doesn’t sell into the world market. We think the supply managed system is not only worth preserving, but that it is a model other countries may want to consider, especially if they if they are not in the export market, it works, it works well in the domestic sense.
But regardless, all countries have sensitive products. Europeans want to protect a percentage that is probably twice as much as what we want to protect even and the Americans want to protect less and that is what negotiations do. Our task over there is to make sure that we get enough protection under the sensitive products category, that we look after the concerns of the supply managed sector and that is what we intend to do.
Prime Minister Harper also spoke about this during a scrum after his caucus’ weekly meeting.
Well, we believe strongly in the system of supply management. We're obviously worried that those demands may come from other countries and Canada's relatively isolated in its system of supply management but we believe it's a successful system and we want to see it retained.