The Conference Board of Canada is calling on Canada to lower
its tariffs on food and agriculture products.
And in a surprise report, it says first that tariffs on
beef, veal, wheat and barley are “unnecessarily high”, and only much later does
it mention tariffs protecting supply management for dairy and poultry.
And when it does mention supply management, it says Canada’s
insistence that it will not yield on these dairy and poultry products means
Canada can’t make trade-offs to bring benefits for exporters.
Author and researcher Kristelle Audet notes that Canada’s
food exports to the United States doubled after the North American Free Trade
Agreement took effect.
She says similar benefits are available to Canadians from
free trade deals now under negotiation.
She writes of the World Trade talks as dead and deals with
opportunities from the negotiations underway now with the European Union, Japan
and the Trans-Pacific Partnership nations.
She says the benefits from lowering Canadian tariffs are
increased choices for consumers, lower prices and a higher standard of living.
The supply-management sector is highly sensitive about these
kinds of reports and has honed its lobbying over decades of defending the
protection farmers and processing companies enjoy.
For example, Mike Dungate, general manager of the national
agency for chickens, argues that Canada has opened about 11 per cent of its
market to low-tariff access for chicken and says this is as good as, or better,
than many other nations.
