Chris Lowrey
PONTIAC Oct. 24, 2018
Pontiac MP Will Amos came out in defense of the recently agreed upon United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
The USMCA was signed on Sept. 30 and gave U.S. dairy producers access to 3.6 per cent of the Canadian dairy market, on top of the 3.25 already granted to the parties of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal signed in 2015.
“First off, this is a good deal for Canada,” Amos said.
Although there has been dissatisfaction from Canadian dairy farmers, Amos said this deal has to be looked at on a larger scale.
“It’s a piece of a puzzle and there are many, many pieces to this puzzle,” he said. “So we have to keep it in context.”
With so many facets to an international trade agreement, Amos said it’s important to look at the entirety of the deal, and not just one industry.
“In the federal riding of Pontiac there are 60 dairy producers and there are 21 in the MRC Pontiac,” Amos said. “There are other regions in Quebec that have larger numbers than that.”
“It’s clearly important,” Amos added.
He said that the day after the deal was signed he contacted a few dairy farmers in the region to hear their thoughts.
Amos said that all through the negotiation process, he’s been in contact with local dairy farmers and conveying their concerns to the federal government. Amos added that he was confident their voices were heard.
“I think they were very receptive,” he said.
“I know this could have been so much worse,” Amos said. “From the perspective of a dairy producer, any concession is not what they wanted.”
But Amos said in light of the demands of the U.S. negotiators, Canada came out in relatively good shape.
“What the Trump administration was demanding from the beginning – and it was unrelenting – was the complete dismantlement of supply management,” he said.
“It’s important for the public to understand that the starting point of the conversation was not ‘Can we access 3.59 per cent and compete on 3.59 per cent of the dairy market,’” Amos said. “The starting point was ‘Do away with it.’”
Amos said the Canadian government’s adherence to the supply management system was a major stumbling block in negotiations, but he’s proud Canada held firm.
Not only that, but Amos said Canada had to relent on other important aspects of the deal in order to preserve supply management.
“There are a number of other issues that I think, in the end, where we had to back down a bit in order to go as low as we did with 3.59 per cent,” he said.
Amos also said it was an unfair assessment to say that dairy farmers have been asked to shoulder concessions for the sake of the rest of the Canadian economy.
He touted some of the successful aspects of the deal, like the preservation of the Chapter 19 dispute resolution.
“That’s a huge win for us,” Amos said. “The maintaining of a dispute settlement mechanism, so that when unjust tariffs are put on our softwood lumber – which affects the Pontiac significantly – we need that dispute settlement mechanism.”
He said that the Canadian government has used Chapter 19 several times in relation to softwood lumber and has won every time.
Overall, Amos said there are several facets of this deal that will have an impact on the country from coast to coast.
“This is a major cloud that has been lifted from the country,” he said.
