Better Farming – September 2016

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54 Farm News First > Better Farming September 2016
then he suggests working with other
‘like-minded” TPP countries to sign
and implement a trade liberalization
regime that needn’t include the
United States.
As it stands, the TPP includes a
formula that ratification requires six
of the 12 signatory nations represent-
ing 85 per cent of trade in the region,
essentially giving the Americans a veto.
Ritz says he is urging other TPP
signatories to essentially ignore that
rule and sign an agreement that gives
them the trade liberalization benefits
they negotiated and support. If the
next U.S. administration does not
want to be part of the deal as negoti-
ated, that’s their problem.
“Throw out the formula that is
there now and just say like-minded
people will move forward with this
with or without the United States,” he
THEHILL
says. “Japan, Mexico, Australia, New
Zealand are in favour of that. Those
who want to be part of TPP certainly
can move forward with it. For the
Liberals to say we have to hitch our
wagon to the Americans and wait for
them makes no sense to me.”
During its first year in office, the
Justin Trudeau Liberal government
and trade minister Chrystia Freeland
have concentrated on promoting the
as-yet-unsigned trade deal with the
European Union with little mention
of TPP or WTO. Agriculture Minister
Lawrence MacAulay has kept a low
trade profile.
Ritz, a former Saskatchewan grain
farmer who once unsuccessfully
dipped into ostrich farming, will mark
two decades in Parliament next year.
His first nine years were in opposi-
tion. He then spent close to a decade
in government, most of it as the
agriculture minister who imposed a
strong will, emphasized trade as the
core of farm economy prosperity
(while defending supply management
and its trade aversion) and changed
the traditional relationship between
farmers and their expectation of
government as a Big Brother banker
when farm incomes decline.
He travelled regularly on trade
missions, once claiming he ate more
Canadian beef in China than in
Canada. Now he is in opposition
again, not agriculture critic and clear-
ly loving it. He says he keeps in close
touch with national farm leaders and
international contacts that he made
as agriculture minister.
“My role today I am very much
enjoying because it is a continuation
of what I was doing in agriculture,”
Ritz said in a summer conversation.
“People in the media called me the
quasi-trade minister when I was
agriculture minister and I certainly
embraced that role. I think trade
access is the key for agriculture and
the future.” He seems to be enjoying
the freedom of not having govern-
ment restraints. BF
Barry Wilson is a member of the
Parliamentary Press Gallery and specializes in
agriculture.