Erasing misconceptions
MP says meetings in U.S. over trade relations go well
While Canadians know the importance of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), MP Mark Eyking (Sydney-Victoria) has concerns that many American don’t realize just how important trade between the U.S. and Canada is.
Eyking, chair of Canada’s International Trade Committee (CIIT), returned from the U.S. earlier this month. While in the U.S., he and members of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on International Trade visited Washington D.C.to discuss Canada’s trading relations with the US Congress Trade Committee and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In addition to a number of Washington meetings, attending multiple committees and a series of roundtables, Eyking addressed a North American Leadership Dialogue, hosted by the U.S. Canadian Chamber of Commerce, during a reception and dinner on Tuesday, June 6. In his speech, he talked about the deep trading relationship Canada and the United States hold with two billion dollars’ worth of trade flowing between our borders each day, and nine million American jobs depending on trade with Canada. While Canada has successfully dealt with the European trade agreement, Eyking plans to use what was learned from that experience in dealing with NAFTA.
While he says it may be time to reboot and retool NAFTA, he says it’s also time to let Americans know just how important trade is between the two countries and to clear up some misconceptions. For example, he says he learned that some members of the congressional trade committee had the completely wrong idea about Canada’s dairy industry.
“They thought our dairy industry was subsidized,” said Eyking, adding that while Canada’s dairy industry is not subsidized, the American one is. “They thought we were dumping milk down there. There were three things that set me back a bit. Number one, they thought we were subsidized, number two that we’re causing their prices to be low and number three that really kind of took me back was they thought our milk wasn’t as good quality as theirs. We know our cows don’t get the hormones and various things and we know our husbandry practices are probably better because our farms are smaller, and they’re more hands-on … I told them the consumer doesn’t subsidize
one cent of our milk. They still sell five times more milk to us than we do to them.”
While he felt good that they had a chance to dispel some of the myths surrounding the dairy industry, he said for the most part, most politicans and business people realize how valuable trade is between the two countries.
But in meetings with wine producers, he found it surprising many had no idea that most of their wines head to Canada — Canada is the biggest buyer of U.S. wines and the U.S. is the biggest buyer of Canadian seafood. They also found out that most American workers don’t realize just how dependent their jobs are on trade between the two countries,
said Eyking.
“The challenge will be getting our message to the average American that nine million of their jobs rely on selling products to Canada.”
Eyking said he sensed after talking to congress in Washington and Mexican trade officials that a new trade agreement could happen quickly because of the upcoming mid-term elections in the U.S. and the Mexican election.
“We have to reach out now … the stakes are high,” he said, adding that it’s important to get the point across that Canada is not the problem.
“If this thing goes off the rails, it will be hard to fix it.”