Canada lags in global trade race: Emerson
The Globe and Mail, Toronto
Canada lags in global trade race: Emerson
Conservatives plan to accelerate efforts
By Steven Chase
8 June 2006
OTTAWA — Canada has rested on its resource-boom laurels and has fallen behind in the global race to sign free-trade deals with other countries, Trade Minister David Emerson warns.
"We’ve been coasting," he said in an interview yesterday. "We need to get back into the game."
Mr. Emerson will serve notice in a speech today that the Conservatives plan to accelerate efforts to clinch new trade deals, including a free-trade agreement with South Korea and an investor-protection deal with China.
Canada has signed only one free-trade agreement in the past five years, he pointed out, with Costa Rica in 2001. The U.S. Congress has approved seven agreements with 12 countries since 2001. He said the key to long-term growth is securing preferential access in new markets — access the Americans are scooping up all over the globe.
"We thump our chest about our great economic performance, and we never quite step up to admitting what actually is driving our strong economic and fiscal performance, and a lot of it is commodities," he said. "But commodities are volatile."
Mr. Emerson said he wouldn’t allow affected business groups to block deals that he considers to be in Canada’s interest.
"We have been too willing [in the past] to allow narrow sectional interests to basically set aside the country’s strategic opportunities," Mr. Emerson said.
Previous Liberal governments began talks on at least seven new free-trade agreements and several investor-protection deals. But they completed few; the last free-trade agreement before Costa Rica was with Chile in 1996.
Mr. Emerson said the Conservative government’s minority status in Parliament won’t cow him from forging ahead with deals that could draw opposition.
"You have probably observed I am not a very cautious man," Mr. Emerson joked, referring to his controversial decision to quit the Liberal party after it lost the last election and join the Tory cabinet.
"I am sure my colleagues will rein me in if I go too far, but I think it’s that kind of [cautious] mentality that has put us where we are — which is behind the curve."
Mr. Emerson said Canada has also been complacent because the North American free-trade agreement has reaped dividends for 10 years.
He said talks under past Liberal governments sometimes stalled because Canadian industries such as shipbuilders or the auto sector raised a fuss.
"We’re going to have to step up to the shipbuilding industry and the auto industry and we’re going to have to find ways of helping them to become globally competitive, rather than holding the country back because certain sectors are concerned about competition," he said.
Mr. Emerson, 60, said he’s looking to hire more trade negotiators and has asked his department to identify deals most likely to succeed so he can shift resources there.
He said this drive won’t distract the Conservatives from plans to deepen ties with North American free-trade partners, but said priorities include a free-trade deal with South Korea and investor-protection deals with both China and India — as well as deciding whether to launch talks with Japan. "Japan is still the biggest economy in Asia and we have not really moved in terms of making significant inroads in terms of trade liberalization with Japan," he said.
The trade minister, formerly the head of lumber giant Canfor Corp., said the United States and other countries are sewing up preferential trade access in other nations, and Canada must follow in order to spur economic growth.
Mr. Emerson said Canada has for too long assumed that slow-moving negotiations at the World Trade Organization would open up global markets far more efficiently than bilateral deals. "We have depended too much on the WTO to deliver trade nirvana for Canada," he said.
Canada must also decide whether to continue talks with the European Free Trade Association (non-European Union countries), Singapore and Central American nations, as well as exploratory negotiations with the Caribbean Community and Common Market, and the Andean nations of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela.
