Ministers pitch fair river treaty at summit

Two B.C. cabinet ministers are in Spokane this week, doing their bit in the Canadian strategy to cope with the trade lunacy in the upper echelons of the U.S. government.

The plan that’s been emerging is to bypass the presidency to some extent and reach out to the lowerlevel leaders around the country. Many of them are still in their right minds, and the hope is they will realize the cardinal fact of international trade policy — “nobody wins a trade war.”

A refinement on the plan that came to light at last week’s premiers’ meeting is to confront whatever support there is for President Donald Trump’s bizarre trade ideas by appearing on Fox News to explain themselves.

They want to reach out to U.S. voters who are suspicious of free trade — evidently most of that network’s audience — and explain the importance of the U.S.-Canada trading relationship.

It would be riveting to watch Premier John Horgan try to keep his cool while explaining basic economics to some of those Trump shills. But for now, British Columbians will have to count on the government representatives attending the Pacific Northwest Economic Region summit in Spokane.

It’s just the kind of sub-national networking that Canada hopes will reset the disastrous course the U.S. government is setting.

If the summit’s advance billing is any indication, many of the participants are receptive. The trade situation is being pitched as a crisis, and it’s getting a lot of attention at the four days of meetings this week.

Here’s the tone set in the outline: “Will NAFTA survive? How many jobs in the U.S. and Canada will be lost due to the escalating trade war? Can the U.S.-Canada relationship survive? Will Trump leave Canada in the cold and negotiate a deal with Mexico? How are tariffs affecting our agriculture and local economy? Will the North American auto industry be torn apart? What’s at stake in the largest trading relationship in the world, which amounts to nearly $2 billion per day?”

B.C. issued a much milder notice, but even it suggests there’s much more at stake than usual: “It’s a critical and challenging time.”

The economic region, an association of western provinces and states that sends representatives to an annual conference, is almost 30 years old.

Agriculture Minister Lana Popham and Children and Families Minister Katrine Conroy join parliamentary secretary Rick Glumac at the conference. Also on hand are MLAs Ronna Rae Leonard and Bob D’Eith, along with B.C. innovation commissioner Alan Winter. That’s a larger contingent than usual. The only problem with the mission is that Canada and the U.S. have an argument shaping up on the West Coast that’s just as challenging as the trade disputes. It’s about renewing the Columbia River Treaty, and the economic region is a key forum for sounding out views on that topic.

The formal negotiation period on the treaty started two months ago, and the U.S. key position is that Canada is getting far more benefits than were anticipated when it was ratified in 1964. As the Americans put it: “An imbalance has developed in the equitable sharing of the downstream power benefits.”

So the “Canadian entitlement” — to large amounts of power from U.S. dams, in return for all the advantages conferred on the U.S. by the B.C. dams — has to be renegotiated (sharply downward), they say.

The Canadian opening line is more circumspect — basically, let’s make the fairest deal we can.

Negotiations will run for years, but the interest has been ramping up lately and will get steadily more intense. So the B.C. brigade trying to maintain the trade peace this week will be talking to people who are steadily paying more attention to a specific local grievance. They think they’re getting a bad deal from the historic treaty and are determined to rewrite the terms.

Conroy, who was the NDP point person for the treaty in Opposition, went into the conference stressing the need to continue the collaborative approach on the treaty.

“The fundamental principle of the treaty must continue to be maximizing benefits for Canada and the United States, and sharing them equitably.”

Hard for anyone to argue with that. Except the president. If he turns his mind to the negotiations, all bets are off.