Evidence of meeting #29 for International Trade in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was text.
A recording is available from Parliament.
President, National Farmers Union
From the direct questions that I have asked of Mr. Gauthier, both on the phone in the last couple of weeks, for the agriculture trade committee, and in the meeting that I had with him this morning.
October 8th, 2009 / 12:45 p.m.
Conservative
Gerald Keddy Conservative South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS
Well, that's interesting, because I've been at a few of the international meetings. And I actually thought that both Mr. Gauthier and Mr. Stephenson presented well at committee here. It's not quite fair to put all the onus on their shoulders. They absolutely do represent the government with very clear orders. And those clear orders are that we protect supply management and that any decisions about the Canadian Wheat Board--there has never been any doubt about it, we just heard the minister say--will be made by Canadians, not by international negotiations.
You know, we don't establish the text. It's not a matter of intervening to establish the text that's set out. In any set of negotiations, generally your chair brings in an extreme text that I think even you might agree--I would like an answer on this question--that nobody at the table, except maybe a very extreme few, would agree to, because it wouldn't work for the developing countries. It wouldn't, quite frankly, work for most of the so-called developed countries because of the difference of opinion. Every country--every country--has sensitive products.
Do you think any of the countries would agree with the text that's brought down? That's where you start negotiations. No one agrees to that. You begin your negotiations from this extreme point. The chair brings it in. Then they work for several years to whittle away at the excess and get down to something that actually works for everybody.
Do you think any country, let alone Canada, would agree to that opening text? We don't agree to it; we start our negotiations from it.
President, National Farmers Union
But the November text--before this last text--had brackets around the attack on the Canadian Wheat Board and was not agreed to. That was not agreed to by any of the countries, obviously. That bracketed text disappeared. And to my knowledge, on the international scene, Canada is not registering its objection.
When the discussion was held--
Conservative
Gerald Keddy Conservative South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS
No, just stop for a second. How can you say, if you're not at the negotiations, when we've had our chief negotiator on agriculture, we've had our chief negotiator at the WTO, we've had the minister responsible for international trade here, all saying that we...? I've been at some of the negotiations myself. We very strenuously....
I take great exception to what you're saying--that something “might” happen--because we defend very strenuously Canada's role in supply management. Any decisions that will be made on the Wheat Board will be made by Canadians, not by the international marketplace, not by the WTO.
President, National Farmers Union
The question that prompts my statement is why, then, did Canada not object to restarting negotiations on the basis of this last text?
In the words of our negotiator this morning--to me--now that those brackets are gone from that text, that is no longer an item that other countries intend to come back to. Canada may indeed want to come back to it, but the other countries feel now that it's a settled item, and it's not up on the short list of things to negotiate over this coming year.
Conservative
Gerald Keddy Conservative South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS
You're saying “Canada may”. What you're talking about is hypothetical. No one can answer a hypothetical question.
President, National Farmers Union
It's not hypothetical that those brackets came off the text.
Conservative
Gerald Keddy Conservative South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS
It's hypothetical that we might or might not come back to it. You're assuming something, when everything that our government has said—everything, quite frankly, the previous government has said—is that we will defend supply management. We have defended it at the table every time, and I don't know how you can misconstrue that. I don't know how you can think that's unclear. I don't know how you can think that there's some shadow or cloud, unless it's a cloud of paranoia, because we have been very clear. And I tell you, it is very difficult in international negotiations to go in there from a set position that there's no room to negotiate on. Our negotiators know that, and they're very careful that they don't stray from their marching orders.
President, National Farmers Union
I think that maybe what you and I have is just a difference in strategies. I'm trying to make the case that it would have been one of the very best times to register our complaints about the text that we have now, in restarting the process on the base of the text. We could have just put a mark beside this line that said, “We do not agree with the text that was produced at the end of the last talks in November”.
I would say it's similar to buying a car. The easiest time to negotiate the price is before you pay for it. After you've paid for it and gone back to that dealer and said, “Gee, you know, I really wanted something different”—
Conservative
Gerald Keddy Conservative South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS
That's not what you're suggesting. Your suggestion is that Canada will not support the Wheat Board, and it will not support supply management, and I take exception to that. I have never seen one iota of evidence to suggest that from our trade negotiators or from our minister.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Lee Richardson
Thank you.
We'll try to do a quick round here, a couple of minutes each, if anybody has any more questions. I'm sure we can probably find something.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
On this discussion, Mr. Chair, on Gerald's point, it is an extremely serious matter, Gerald, that Canada didn't register an objection to that text. It may be a negotiation, but there should have been an objection registered to the text, which clearly compromises our supply management system. That's why I think we on this side of the table find it hard to really have confidence in what the minister is now saying. There was an opportunity for the Government of Canada to object to the text, and it didn't do it. That text clearly compromises the supply management system.
My question is maybe not so much on supply management, Stewart—I know you're a grain producer, as well. One of the difficulties that I think we all have, in fairness to the government, is that the farm community is really split. You have one part of the farm community saying, oh my golly, we need this WTO agreement; we're going to be practically saying we'll be millionaires forever. Your charts certainly don't show that the open market goes that way. Then you have the supply management industry, which clearly has the evidence on our side, but some are saying it has to be compromised to get to a bottom line agreement.
The Wheat Board is basically saying that the current text allows for a tariff reduction. The tariff reduction applies to bound tariffs, which are ceilings or limits and not applied rates. Therefore the change does not appreciably reduce the applied rates faced by grains, and on top of that. So the gains that are perceived to be there in terms of our exporting are not there. As well, the United States and other countries seem to protect themselves by protecting the fact that they can use export credits and food aid as exceptions. We're not allowing that.
What's your comment on that?
President, National Farmers Union
Well, on the first piece, I would argue with you about the farm voice being split. It certainly appears to be split, but that's a bit different. There's always this discussion about farmers needing to speak with a single voice; you can sum it up with that line. But as long as there is company money involved in farm organizations, or other outside interests' money involved in farm organizations, there will never be a single voice, because companies or governments can fund organizations to get the voice out there that they want to hear.
On the other piece, I don't think it can be clearer that the Canadian farmers, time and time again, have lost from the outcomes of these international trade discussions. We have given up program after program after program and received nothing in return. Our farmers' net incomes in Canada show the result, and it's hard to imagine how anybody could promote these trade agreements, or these types of changes in trade agreements, as things that are actually going to help Canadian farmers.
Our previous trade negotiator, Steve Verheul, for whom I had a lot of respect throughout the whole process, actually made the statement that we cannot call any of these trade agreements a success unless we start to see the incomes of Canadian farmers go up. That's not what we're seeing. If this text were implemented today, immediately the incomes of Canadian farmers would go down, not up, and we would lose our legislative marketing tools, such as supply management and the Canadian Wheat Board.
Bloc
Serge Cardin Bloc Sherbrooke, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
We've been drawing a lot of comparisons in the past few days. We've talked about sumo wrestlers and elephants. Why not draw a third comparison? If you put something on the table during a fight between sumo wrestlers, the only thing that can happen is that that thing will be completely squashed.
According to what the minister and Mr. Keddy are saying, everyone, all the negotiators know Canada's position. Why put it back on the table every time and risk having to restart the discussion? If they still want to convince people of their position, they then run the risk of meeting with a certain degree of adversity and of coming up against a will to change Canada's supply management system.
I have some serious questions on certain points, at the risk of being considered paranoid. That doesn't trouble me that much. We've learned over time that the confidence rate still isn't there. The members from the Conservative Party have clearly said that the negotiators receive instructions from the government. I'm not criticizing the negotiators because I believe they are competent people, but they are negotiating what they're told to negotiate. If one day they were told that we might perhaps make concessions on supply management, they would negotiate along those lines. They would use all their skills to negotiate in the direction requested by the government, as I am convinced they would make every effort to defend it and even say that's not part of the negotiations. That's obvious. From the start of the negotiations, people know what to expect, and if they don't have any other interests in other sectors, perhaps that can quickly put an end to the negotiations. However, I'm convinced that we have to be firm in the many potential trade areas. Those are my comments.
In addition, we often tend to make certain compromises in bilateral negotiations or to do things that we perhaps might not do in a multilateral context—potentially. Aspects as important as sovereignty and food security should always be part of the negotiations. Negotiations are like riding a bicycle. If you stop peddling, you go backwards and fall down. It's the Doha Summit all over again. That's what's happening. The minister hopes to resolve this in 2010, but we know very well that people will have no other choice but to start over again on another basis.
What position would agriculture have in another negotiation? After saying we were unsuccessful at the Doha Summit, we would be starting over again on another basis. What basis should then be established for agriculture?
President, National Farmers Union
I absolutely share your concern about the bilateral negotiations. They are extremely important, because lots of things that are adopted in bilaterals are all of a sudden promoted at WTO as the direction in which WTO should go.
On trade calls that the National Farmers Union has been on, Canadian authorities are telling us that this bilateral negotiation with Europe intends to go much further than the NAFTA already does. We don't know what that means exactly, but when they're talking about services and everything that might affect farmers, we're concerned about that.
Anybody who gets into the ring with a sumo wrestler should be afraid of being crushed. If they are not afraid when they get into a ring with a sumo wrestler, I don't think I want them negotiating on my behalf, because I don't think they are acting responsibly. If you don't want something to get crushed in that ring, you should keep it outside the ring.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Lee Richardson
Thank you, and thank you for your appearance today, Mr. Wells.
That concludes today's session. We meet again in about 12 days. We're not quite sure where we're going to be on that Tuesday in terms of the agenda. We do have some potential witnesses to carry on for another day on this topic, but I'll be in touch with you over the break as to where we're going with it. At this point it is likely that we'll carry on with a further discussion of supply management on that Tuesday following the break.
Conservative
Ron Cannan Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC
Chair, with all this talk about agriculture and turkey, happy thanksgiving.
Liberal