Canada's egg, meat and dairy lobbies are keeping Canada out of a major free trade agreement -- and that's a bad thing, argued international trade lawyer Lawrence Herman in a recent Globe and Mail article.
Australia, Chile, New Zealand and Indonesia are some of the nations that have already joined negotiations in Trans-Pacific Partnership, which would eliminate tariffs on roughly 99 per cent of goods traded between member countries.
Canada has refused to join because it doesn't want to put its supply-managed commodities on the table. These include turkey and chicken meat, eggs and dairy. Only a small fraction of our total supply of these products come from taxed imports.
Under Canada's supply management system, farmers require quota to sell these products -- which is allocated by national and provincial marketing boards based on demand -- and they receive a guaranteed price shielded from global market fluctuations.
Herb Barbolet, a consultant on food and agriculture policy and founder of the Vancouver non-profit Farm Folk/City Folk, says the move is surprising, given the fact that in 2007 the Harper government tried to dismantle the Canadian Wheat Board, which has undergone major structural changes in the past decade.
"This is a change in position," Barbolet told The Tyee. "I think they may have gotten burned over the wheat board and realized that the lobby and some of their allies are much stronger than they anticipated."
While Herman argues in his op-ed piece that these industry lobbies are "shielding the market from foreign competition," and "keep the farm-gate prices for these products high," Barbolet maintains that they are essential for farmer survival.
"The only lucrative farming that exists now is supply-managed farms or micro farms. Anything in the middle is very iffy. And disappearing," Barbolet said. "On a rational basis, supply management makes sense. So I think it's the right decision, whether or not they're doing it for the right reasons. I can only attribute it to political motivation."
Colleen Kimmett reports for The Tyee.
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Van Isle
1 year ago
How could the little farmer
How could the little farmer ever be on a level playing field with the big agri-business farms? The big boys don't give a rats-ass about any country's food security let alone about food nutrition/additives. The farm I grew up here on Vancouver Island is now just a bunch of single residential/duplex homes and the same thing for all the other small farms that were in our area.
Fiat lux
1 year ago
What we should have is a
What we should have is a free trade agreement where $1,000/hr lawyers should "compete" from other countries at $25/hr.
Thousands of Indian farmers have committed suicide because of milk and various food imports into their country.
Thanks to the fraudulent "capital movement" treaties, Canada is now an importer of foods that used to and could easily be grown here.
Thanks to this "competition" fraud that started in the 70s the first foodbank in Canada opened in Edmonton in 1981.
Look at the numbers now and growing every year.
http://www.cafb-acba.ca/main2.cfm?id=10718648-B6A7-8AA0-6A3C6F3CAC0124E1
What some of these blundering "conservative" idiots, including most economists, should remember that:
"Real costs can not be cut, only transferred on other sectors, the environment and future generations"
The First Law of Thermodynamics all economic systems work under, albeit distorted by phony monetary figures that ruin real economies and are destroying the ecology and humanity.
Thanks to the advice to the world's neoclassical, Friedmanite economists, all governments have been going out of their way to destroy private enterprise and replace it with Soviet style collectivization, while calling it "free enterprise capitalism" and "individualism"
Have living conditions improved, or sank since this "free trade" crime wave started?
I just had to throw out a compressor, because "cheap imports" wiped out the repair shops, with the imported garbage burying us.
Ed Deak.