A TIGHT DEADLINE
Tories hope to wrap up Pacific trade deal before campaign.
OTTAWA — The Conservatives are anxiously hoping to sign off on a massive free-trade deal before kicking off an election campaign expected to start as early as Sunday.
The government is at the negotiating table in Hawaii, where Trans-Pacific Partnership talks are reportedly in their final stages. With voting day set for Oct. 19, the governing Tories want to launch the campaign with the deal in hand — an agreement they could brandish as evidence of their economic stewardship.
The CBC reported Wednesday that Prime Minister Stephen Harper will ask Gov. Gen. David Johnston on Sunday or Monday to dissolve Parliament. The Tories have a major rally planned for Montreal on Sunday night, the CBC reported.
That would begin an 11-week election campaign — the longest in Canadian history. The Tories are widely seen as having the upper hand in a long campaign, because they have by far the most cash. Changes to election law last year allow parties to increase their spending by $675,000 per day beyond the $25-million maximum for each day the campaign exceeds the 37-day legal minimum.
The TPP, a pact between 12 countries including Canada, the U.S., Mexico and Japan, is to become the biggest trade deal in history. The countries involved represent some 800 million people with a combined gross domestic product of roughly 40 per cent of the world’s economy.
Just as a deal could be a boon to Conservative campaign fortunes, however, a delay could cause them headaches. If talks stretch past the start of the campaign, experts say they could prove politically delicate.
In particular, Canada is under pressure from other countries to lower the high tariffs that currently protect domestic producers of eggs, milk, cheese and poultry from foreign competition under supply management.
In an interview Wednesday with Bloomberg, Harper insisted the government will defend the interests of every Canadian industry “as best we can.”
Harper also said the negotiations were “well advanced” and that Canada “cannot be left out of this kind of trade arrangement.”
If Trans-Pacific Partnership talks do spill into the campaign window, officially known as the writ period, thorny political issues would become that much more sensitive, Ottawa trade consultant Adam Taylor said.
“I don’t think Canada will walk away from the TPP table to save its furniture and bacon on the election hustings,” said Taylor, a former senior adviser to Trade Minister Ed Fast and now a director at a firm called Ensight.
Once the campaign begins, the government will shift into caretaking mode. That would allow it to continue negotiations, but likely prevent it from binding a future government or signing a new international commitment, said a former high-ranking civil servant who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Robert Wolfe, a Queen’s University professor and former government trade negotiator, said representatives from the other countries at the bargaining table are aware of Canada’s election schedule.
“So, most of them are of the view that they’d better wrap stuff up this week because after that they may simply not be able to get a decision out of Canada,” Wolfe said.