Better Farming – September 2016

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Better Farming September 2016 Farm News First > 53
W hen it comes to agricultur-
al trade deals and what the
rookie Justin Trudeau
Liberal government should do about
it, the Opposition Conservative trade
critic preaches some tough love.
Gerry Ritz, 65 years old this
summer and Canada’s sixth-longest-
serving agriculture minister with
more than eight years in the portfolio
from 2007 to 2015, has some strong
views on trade issues that confront
the new government.
And as trade critic, he has a
platform to express those views.
Don’t waste energy and political
capital on negotiations over a new
World Trade Organization deal based
on the 2001 Doha Round agreement
that WTO negotiators still have as
their template. It isn’t going to happen,
he says. Every two years, negotiators
gather, discuss and resolve nothing.
In fact, Canada should quit looking
to the WTO as a forum to negotiate
new international agricultural trade
agreements. He acknowledges the
organization’s usefulness as an arbitra-
tor and regulator of existing trade
rules, but says it is not a forum to
create new global trade rules. “The way
the WTO is structured now with every
country having a veto, it doesn’t work,”
says Ritz. “We have to move on.”
And the Trans-Pacific Partnership
(TPP) agreement Canada signed onto
last year that would expand Asia-Pa-
cific access for many agricultural
products?
Ritz strongly supports it. If U.S.
voters this fall elect a president
determined to oppose TPP as it
stands (both Hillary Clinton and
Donald Trump have said they are),
From agriculture to trade
Gerry Ritz, never afraid to speak his mind, has some opinions to share.
THEHILL
by BARRY WILSON
Gerry Ritz