Canada’s supply-management system of controlling the market for dairy products is once again proving a major stumbling block in Abbotsford MP and Minister of International Trade Ed Fast’s drive to secure international trade deals.
The latest glitch comes in the longstanding negotiations over a Pacific trade deal which comes from the US Senate.
In an appearance before both a House and a Senate committee on Tuesday, United States Trade Representative Michael Froman fielded a barrage of questions from U.S. legislators about what the Obama administration might get from Canada in the ongoing TPP negotiations.
[source] [excerpt] On the dairy side, not much seems to have changed since last April, when Froman told the House Ways and Means Committee that Canada was waiting to see what concessions Japan was willing to give before making a market access offer for the supply-managed dairy, poultry and egg sectors.
“As you know, Canada’s dairy market was not sufficiently opened as part of NAFTA, and many of the tariff rates on dairy products range from 200 to 295 per cent. So I want to strongly urge you to continue pushing on our friends in the north when it comes to market access for cheese and other dairy products,” Richard Burr, the Republican senator from South Dakota, told Froman.
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The 2005 Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement (TPSEP or P4) is a trade agreement among Brunei, Chile, New Zealand, and Singapore. Its purported aims are to further liberalise the economies of the Asia-Pacific region.
Ed Fast, Stephen Harper And The TPP