Canada's trade position needs enhanced visibility on world stage

News Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 20, 2003

Farm leaders meet with Stuart Harbinson in advance of WTO Mini-Ministerial

GENEVA -- Farm leaders from the Canadian Federation of Agriculture (CFA) traveled to Geneva earlier this week to meet with Stuart Harbinson, Chair of the WTO Committee on Agriculture. The CFA representatives promoted Canada's trade position in anticipation of the upcoming Mini-Ministerial meeting in Egypt. They also met with Canadian WTO Ambassador Sergio Marchi and trade ambassadors from the United States, the European Union, India, Switzerland, and Japan.

"Following the meetings, CFA feels it is clear that the Canadian government needs to step up efforts to communicate Canada's trade position to other WTO member nations," remarked CFA President Bob Friesen. "We observed that there is considerable interest in Canada's position but that the details need improved clarity during discussions."

"Our assessment is that for Canada there are three key goals for these negotiations to move forward. We must obtain a higher level of ambition to ensure discipline in green-box spending and design an approach to market access that combines new access commitments with an adequate measure of flexibility. On export subsidies, the CFA officials encouraged the continued pursuit of tight and effective discipline on the use of export credit and food aid programs." said Friesen in a presentation to Mr. Harbinson.

Canadian farmers strongly support the market access approach put forward by Canadian trade negotiators, Mr. Friesen told Mr. Harbinson. CFA believes that setting clear, enforceable, and common standards for minimum access with Canada's optional approach* would provide a good starting point for resolving the difficulty in achieving a substantial improvement in market access in a manner that provides flexibility.

The farm leaders told Mr. Harbinson that where domestic support is concerned, it is crucial to achieve significant reductions in domestic subsidies by revisiting green box definitions. The propositions put forward by Mr. Harbinson, said the CFA executives, would continue to force our farmers to compete against high-level subsidies in other countries, especially in the U.S.

"We strongly believe that there are situations when an individual or small group of farmers do not have the market leverage to earn a fair value for their products," said Laurent Pellerin, CFA 1st-Vice President and President of L'Union producteurs agricoles (UPA) on the subject of State Trading Enterprises and Orderly Marketing Systems. "We have developed a framework for this in Canada that permits the establishment of a variety of producer-operated marketing systems. These structures are fair, non-trade distorting and compatible with the provisions of Article XVII."

"The optional market access approach as submitted by the Canadian government would achieve significant improved market access while protecting farmer empowerment. It will bridge the gap between the two current divergent positions: the Swiss formula and the Uruguay Round formula," said Friesen.

The farm leaders believe there's a window of opportunity to advocate Canada's position as a means to break the current deadlock in negotiations.

"More needs to be done to build alliances with other countries and aggressively promote the Canadian negotiating position," said Pellerin.

The CFA-lead delegation will take these issues up directly with International Trade Minister Pierre Pettigrew.

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* The following is an illustration of the application of this approach to existing two stage tariff (within quota and over-quota tariffs) and any single stage tariffs which are converted to two stage tariffs as outlined above.

• Tariff Rate Quotas (TRQs) be established on a product group basis such as pork, beef, etc. and be available to all products within each product group. The product groups, for which separate minimum access calculations and provisions are required, should be defined in a specific list.
• Over quota tariffs be maintained at a level that ensures no more access that the intended level of the TRQ.
• In quota tariffs be reduced to zero.
• Establishment of transparent, effective and binding rules governing TRQ administration in order to ensure that the committed level of minimum access is available and achievable.

Founded in 1935 to provide Canada's farmers with a single voice in Ottawa, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture is the country's largest farmers' organization. Its members include provincial general farm organizations as well as national and inter-provincial commodity organizations from every province. Through its members, CFA represents over 200,000 Canadian farmers and farm families.

Contact:

Kieran Green, CFA Communications Coordinator, (613) 236-3633, info@cfafca.ca

Bob Friesen, CFA President, (204) 724-0824 (cell)

Brigid Rivoire, CFA Executive Director, (613) 236-3633 / (613) 715-3113 (cell)