The eternal NDP struggle with free trade
JEFFREY SIMPSON
BRUNNER, ONT. — The Globe and Mail
Published Saturday, Jul. 25, 2015
Short of hugging and kissing a cow on the nose, NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair could not have embraced more ardently Canada’s supply-management system for dairy, eggs and poultry this week.
Visiting the Slits family farm in Brunner, Ont., about 15 kilometres north of Stratford, Mr. Mulcair committed his party to an all-out defence of supply management, which some countries want diluted as part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade negotiations.
Twice, the NDP Leader was asked: As prime minister, would you sign a TPP agreement if it meant concessions on supply management? Twice, Mr. Mulcair dodged a direct answer, then launched into a vigorous defence of the system of quotas and price-and-supply fixing that underpins supply management. As prime minister, he declared, he would “defend supply management in its entirety.”
Yes, he admitted, supply management with its stratospheric tariffs and limited import quotas means consumers pay a “premium” (i.e. higher prices), but they get “food sovereignty,” family farms and stable markets. And, by the way, Americans should not be giving lessons to anybody, considering their agricultural subsidies.
Mr. Mulcair posed for pictures next to a poster that said: “Proud Supporters of 100 per cent Canadian Milk: Dairy Farmers of Canada.” He toured the Slits family operation. He fed and petted a two-day-old calf. Lest any dairy, chicken, turkey or egg producer misunderstand, he is with them.
It is unlikely Mr. Mulcair could hug a cow while signing Canada up for the TPP. Negotiations with 11 other countries for this major agreement head into the final lap in Hawaii next week.
For Canada to reject the TPP, or be forbidden to join because of supply management, would deprive the overall economy of growth prospects for the sake of one industry’s protection. Apparently, that is the trade-off Mr. Mulcair would make. At least while in opposition.
The TPP would not dismantle supply management, but rather force moderations to the system by more quota access, lower tariffs or both. That is what the Harper government will be trying to achieve. Even if successful in this rear-guard defence, the government will be accused of everything short of infanticide by supply-management devotees if it yields very much.
Long before the NDP won any seats in Quebec, where the dairy farmers are unionized, politically powerful, cacophonously vocal and well financed, thereby holding politicians of every stripe in their thrall, the federal NDP endorsed supply management.
The party did not need to do so, politically speaking. NDP constituents were largely urban. Many were low-income. Since poor families spend more of their incomes than richer families on basic necessities such as food, including supply-managed products, it made no economic sense to defend high producer prices to the detriment of low-income consumers.
So why did the NDP do it? The party had little skin in the game, being weak in rural ridings of Ontario and Quebec. Some of their voters were getting hosed by the high prices.
Supply management represented, and presumably still represents, what the party likes intellectually: something other than the full free market, a system of individual producers shielded by controls and quotas with an important role for government, in this case through high tariffs and legislation authorizing the whole scheme.
The idea of growing “big” producers capable of exporting ran against the party’s nervousness about “big” corporations, “big” business, corporatization and international free trade. Alas for the party, much global trade is conducted these days between “big” entities that can access foreign markets.
In trade policy, the NDP prefers what it calls “managed trade” (whatever that means), because free trade is too unpredictable: winners, yes, but too much risk, too many losers, too much corporate power. This kind of philosophy rests uneasily with today’s international trade agreements, which is why Mr. Mulcair is trying to straddle different views within his party.
Unions and the party’s left generally oppose free-trade deals; others within the party believe trade deals are useful, on balance, to grow the economy. The struggle between protectionism and trade liberalization remains just below the surface in the NDP.
Mr. Mulcair says he favours transpacific free trade, but not at the expense of supply management. He says he favours the Canada-European Union free-trade and investment deal, but he must see the detailed text, which is a form of punting a definitive proclamation. So he is all for the deal, maybe, perhaps, likely, we’ll see.
