Editorial

Liberals Capitulating to U.S. Trade Pressures

A pattern is emerging in the response of the Liberal government to the predatory trade policies of the United States. That pattern is to complain vocally, but then to capitulate and give the Americans whatever they demand. This has been the case with the softwood lumber dispute, as well as the U.S. tariffs on steel, and there are indications that the Liberals may do the same thing with the dispute over agricultural exports.

In the case of softwood lumber, it has been repeatedly demonstrated at numerous trade dispute hearings that the U.S. government subsidizes its industry at least to the same extent as the Canadian government. However, this has not stopped the U.S. government from slapping crippling tariffs on Canadian softwood lumber, which have resulted in the loss of over 50,000 Canadian jobs - half of the jobs in the industry. The American demand is that Canada must privatize its forests and allow U.S. companies to directly own and control vast tracts of Canadian timber. The response of the Canadian government has been almost non-existent, which may indicate that it is waiting for the crisis to evolve to the point where Canadian workers begin demanding privatization of the forests as a way to get back to work. It could then present the abandonment of sovereignty over our forests as a demand of the people.

In the case of agricultural products, it is well known that American subsidies have historically been several times greater than those in Canada. With the recent announcement of massive new agricultural subsidies in the U.S., this inequity in subsidy levels will more than double. Yet the American government has launched a complaint against "unfair" Canadian export subsidies. However, as in the case of softwood lumber, the demand of the Americans is not that Canadian subsidies be reduced, but that the distribution system should be privatized. Specifically, they are demanding the dismantling of the Canadian Wheat Board, which is a marketing board established during the Great Depression to stabilize farm incomes in Canada.

The Liberal government vehemently condemned the American announcement of increased agricultural subsidies only a few weeks ago. However, a parliamentary committee comprised mainly of Liberals has issued a report recommending precisely what the Americans are demanding, ending the monopoly of the Canadian Wheat Board. In the face of massive opposition by Western farmers, the Chretien Liberals are now trying to distance themselves from their own report. It appears that the report was a trial balloon to test just how far they can go, similar to an earlier report recommending the export bulk water which was also prepared by a Liberal-dominated parliamentary committee.

Implementing the report's recommendations would not eliminate a marketing monopoly; it would simply replace a public monopoly with a private monopoly controlled by the huge American grain monopolies such as Cargill and Louis Dreyfus,. It would also ensure the ruin of what is left of Canadian independent farmers and allow American corporate farms to buy up Canadian land at fire sale prices.

In other words, the United States is using strong-arm tactics and illegal tariffs not to protect its own corporations from unfair competition, but to assist those corporations to destroy and absorb their competitors in Canada.

This, of course, is nothing new. The Americans have never believed in free or fair trade; they have always used the power of the U.S. state to assist them to destroy their competition. However, in the past, Canadian governments put up at least some semblance of resistance to American predatory trade practices. The present Chretien government, despite its current nationalistic-sounding rhetoric, has not only given up even the pretence of resistance, but has adopted a policy of actively facilitating the destruction of the nation and the sell-out of Canadian sovereignty to U.S. corporations.