The Liberal Party election victory has most sectors of the economy wondering how their particular activity will be affected by new government policy. Agriculture is no exception and it comes at a particularly sensitive time for a number of commodities that are part of trade issues and discussions. The question is will the new Trudeau regime pursue ag related trade matters with the same enthusiasm as the previous Conservative government. It's a fair perspective when one examines where the Liberal victory was achieved.
The Liberal victory was achieved mainly in the urban areas of Canada, with a preponderance of Liberal seats in Toronto and Montreal. The Conservative seats have a preponderance of rural and small town components. It would be safe to assume that the majority of urban-focused Liberal MPs would be clueless about agriculture and food production. That does not bode well for prioritizing ag issues by a government that is beholden to city voters. Another danger is that trendy politically correct food related issues will come to life. Green, animal rights and lifestyle lobby groups would be aware of the naiveté of new Liberal MPs on issues like GMOs, hormones, sustainability etc.. and will be unleashing their propaganda machines on those innocents. Even after government and committee chair appointments, there will still be over 100 Liberal government MPs with nothing left to do. Devious lobby group strategists will be targeting those new gullible parliamentarians to manipulate them into supporting their twisted causes. But I digress.
Three agriculture-related trade agreements and issues may be impacted by the change in federal government – The Canada/EU agreement, the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement and the WTO ruling on US Country Of Origin Labelling (COOL). The Liberals did not formally declare support for TPP during the election, but they do support free trade, and with the civil service in favour, they are likely to support the agreement. It's Liberal policy to support supply management, but with a generous quota compensation program in place, any significant dairy and poultry sector opposition to TPP has been averted. That's going to make the approval easy for the new government. However, many American Democratic and Republican politicians and potential presidential candidates have already made negative statements about the TPP agreement. Without American approval and participation in the TPP agreement, it will surely die.
One hopes that Canadian trade officials are keeping alive direct trade discussions with TPP partners like Japan just in case the TPP agreement falters. Assuming that TPP is a done deal and then finding out two years later that its going to die puts Canadian beef exports to Japan even further behind the Americans and Aussies. The situation reminds one of past World Trade Organization (WTO) agreements, all faltered and most countries resorted to bilateral trade discussions. It's been suggested that Canada put too much faith in the WTO trade discussion process and did not engage in bilateral discussions quick enough, which gave the US and Australia the jump on us with their South Korea and Japan trade deals.
The EU/Canada treaty is nowhere near being ratified by the 28 EU countries and sure to get bogged down in squabbles about beef quota and access intricacies. The latter being particularly worrisome as crafty EU negotiators are notorious for being able to con trade partners into thinking they have market access whilst laying technical traps that actually restrict real access. It will all be an excruciating process and one hopes the new government will see ratification as a priority.
What may be more worrisome is the politics surrounding the COOL issue. The new Liberal government may reduce the zeal with which Canada is pursuing COOL trade retaliation against the US. Federal Liberals see themselves more politically aligned with President Obama than the previous Conservative government, so they will probably want to be less belligerent on any COOL retaliatory measures. I fear Canadian trade officials on the COOL file will be suspending their efforts to initiate any retaliatory measures approved by the WTO. Prime Minister Trudeau may not want unpleasant political optics like the implementation of trade retaliation measures to cloud his relationship with President Obama.
Finally many promises were made by the incoming Trudeau government with hundreds of millions promised for new ag research and market development. But with budget realities and ag being a low political priority those promises are sure to be the first to be axed or delayed. It would seem that benign neglect might be the best hope for agriculture from the new federal government.