Canada won’t have input into TPP trade talks: Paul Martin
Montreal Gazette, Canada
Canada won’t have input into TPP trade talks: Paul Martin
By Natalie Stechyson, Postmedia News
24 June 2012
OTTAWA — Canada is in a position where it’s likely going to have to either sign on the dotted line or walk away from the Trans-Pacific Partnership entirely, said former Liberal prime minister Paul Martin.
"The fact is that a substantial amount of this agreement apparently has already been negotiated, and Canada is not going to have a choice but either to accept it or reject it," Martin, who also served as finance minister with the Chretien Liberals, told CTV’s Question Period on Sunday.
"In other words, we will have no input into that. And that’s worrisome because we don’t really know what those agreements are."
Prime Minister Stephen Harper officially announced last Tuesday at the G20 summit in Mexico that Canada has been accepted into the negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Many observers believe the TPP could outstrip the North American Free Trade Agreement in economic importance.
The TPP trade bloc includes Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam. Mexico — along with Canada — has also entered the negotiations. Japan has signalled it wants in on the talks.
A handful of countries in the TPP negotiations — including New Zealand and the United States — initially had been resisting Canada’s entry into the group because of the Canadian supply management system that protects fewer than 20,000 dairy and poultry farmers behind a tariff wall and hands them production quotas.
Supply management is one of several issues on the table, Martin said Sunday, and Canadians will have to wait and see how that plays out.
"The government has said they’re going to be able to square that circle. That, in fact, they’re going protect it."
While Canada has always maintained the position that it would protect supply management, it enters into the TPP negotiations with everything up for discussion, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty told CTV.
"This is the great trading opportunity in the world as the Asian economies emerge," Flaherty said.
"It is a negotiation. We have some concerns with some of the more protectionist policies of some of the other countries that would be involved."
By taking part in the talks, Canada has agreed to put everything on the table, U.S. Ambassador David Jacobson told CTV.
"And that means everything. We have issues. Canada has issues. Mexico has issues. And these are going to be negotiated," Jacobson said.
It’s not supply management itself that the U.S. is concerned about, Jacobson said, noting that supply management is "an internal Canadian issue." The issue is whether Americans and other TPP members will have access to Canadian markets, tariffs and quotas.
"I expect there’s going to be some hard bargaining on all sides," Jacobson said.
