CIIT Committee Report

DEFENSE OF SUPPLY MANAGEMENT AT THE WORLD TRADE ORGANISATION
Supplementary Opinion of the New Democratic Party
Peter Julian MP

The NDP believes that Canada’s supply management sector and state trading enterprises represent an important dimension of fair trade. This dimension is central to Canadian food sovereignty and security in addition to being pivotal to the sustained vitality of our rural communities. This proper and orderly management of Canada’s high quality agri-food products has vastly benefited Canadian communities and consumers from coast to coast to coast and globally.

At the hearings of the Standing Committee on International Trade, Stewart Wells, President of the National Farmers Unions (NFU), provided evidence showing that, unlike other agriculture sectors, the supply management sector, which is based on cost of production recovery, was able to stabilize prices and the net operating income of dairy, poultry and egg farmers. The data presented by the NFU illustrates how Canada’s supply management and orderly marketing systems ensured a more stable, consistent income share to the sector, in spite of the crisis. At a time when Canadian farmers have to pay down a $60 billion debt on a long term average net market income of $125 million, maintaining the integrity of the supply management sector and the Canadian Wheat Board becomes even more critical. 

The NDP reiterates its unconditional and long standing support of Canada's Supply Management sector and state trading enterprises and thus fully supports the Committees’ recommendation to press the government to defend Canada’ supply management  sector. 

However, The NDP is concerned by the fact that the text of the Committee’s recommendation is not as comprehensive as the Motion which was unanimously passed by the House of Commons in 2005 to support Supply Management. The motion is highlighted in the Committee’s report. A recommendation incorporating the critical elements of the 2005 Motion would have provided a clearer, more comprehensive directive to Canada's negotiators at the WTO with respect to Canada's position, with most importantly a firm commitment not to reduce over-quota tariffs and increase tariff quotas.

The NDP is especially concerned by the fact that the Conservative government has failed to take steps to remove provisions that undermine Canada's State Trading Enterprise system.  Chief among these failures is seen with the Wheat Board from the most recent version of the agriculture draft modalities text circulated at the WTO. To help address this glaring shortfall, the NDP proposed a motion to be included as the key recommendation in the report of the Standing Committee. The Motion would have provided clear unambiguous instructions to Canada’s negotiators at the WTO to correct the fault contained in the current text drafted by the previous WTO Agriculture Chair.

The NDP Motion called on the Committee to recommend that “the government immediately instruct Canada’s negotiator to indicate clearly and formally by way of the appropriate means at the World Trade Organization, that the text currently circulating at the Agriculture working group undermines and weakens Canada’s ability to maintain State Trading Enterprises and Supply Management systems, and that consequently, the text as currently before the working group on agriculture will not be signed by Canada as part of the negotiations on the Doha round of the WTO, and that this be reported to the House”.

The NDP Motion was voted down by the Conservative members of the committee; yet another case in point illustrating the long standing ideological hostility of the Conservative government to Canada's State Trading Enterprise system, and its lukewarm support of Supply Management.   

Unfortunately, the evidence provided by past government policies directed at Canada’s supply management system and the Wheat Board clearly demonstrates that both Conservative and Liberal governments have tended to prioritize the interests of large multinational agri-businesses, which have not directed their business activities to provide the same benefits supported by the supply managed sector and state trading enterprises to communities.

Despite the Conservative government’s repeated claim that it shall defend supply management, no clear communication of the importance of our supply managed sector has occurred prior to the WTO negotiations resuming. Clearly, the government had also been unwilling to take the very firm steps that other countries such as New Zealand have taken to defend their state trading enterprises.

In other words, the Conservative government is talking the talk, but it’s not walking the walk.