Postmedia News reports tonight, “Prime Minister Stephen Harper (has announced) Canada will apply to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership and will further look to sell its oil and gas to Asian countries following American delays in approving the Keystone XL pipeline. …The Trans-Pacific Partnership is currently a nine-member Asia-Pacific free-trade proposal being negotiated among the United States, Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.” Both Japan and Mexico have also expressed interest in joining the TPP.
Implications?
Postmedia notes, “(This means) Canada’s supply management system is on the table. A handful of countries in the TPP negotiations…have been resisting Canada’s entry into the group because of the Canadian supply management system that protects fewer than 20,000 dairy and poultry farmers behind a tariff wall and hands them production quotas. …The prime minister (now says) Canada can ‘easily meet’ the broad strokes of the agreement unveiled Saturday by Obama, even if it means throwing into the mix a supply management system that forces Canadians to pay higher prices for products like milk, cheese, chicken and eggs.”
The Wall Street Journal reports, “The nine countries are promoting it as a 21st-century trade deal that will seek to streamline supply chains, regulations and rules of origin across the region, as well as to facilitate trade of green and digital goods. …Concerns (have been raised) that the intellectual-property protections being proposed for drugs would limit access to access to life-saving medicines, and that some provisions would continue to allow companies to sue governments over rules to protect the environment.”
A Harper government media release issued this weekend states, “The government has invested over $1.4 billion in the Asia-Pacific Gateway to improve and expand our ports and infrastructure… Examples include the construction of the four-lane South Fraser Perimeter Road along the Fraser River…”
And Platts reports, “Canadian Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver said November 13 he wants a regulatory decision by early 2013, a year ahead of the current schedule, on Enbridge’s Northern Gateway project to expedite the shipment of Alberta oil sands crude to Asia. …’The Chinese are ready to buy’, he told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. ‘The issue is building the infrastructure to get our resources to China.’ To that end, Oliver said he now expects Northern Gateway’s hearings to be completed within a year of starting in January 2012.”
Why?
The Globe and Mail notes, “Top Harper government ministers characterized the Keystone delay as a wake-up call. Speaking from Honolulu, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty told CTV’s Question Period: “We’ve got to go where the trade is’, adding that Canada needs to work harder to ’emphasize’ its trading relationships with Asia. Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver similarly told CBC-TV that diversifying away from the United States, particularly in energy, is ‘right at the centre of our thinking. …It is a major, fundamental strategic objective for Canada.'”
Timeline?
The Malaysia Star reports, “The United States and its eight Trans-Pacific Partnership allies have agreed to complete the broad outlines of the free trade agreement by July next year.”
In November 2010, the Globe and Mail reported, “The 21 leaders of APEC signed off on a plan to create a Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific by 2020, a long-promised and long-debated effort to open up trade between some of the world’s largest economies.” APEC countries account for approximately 40% of the world’s population, approximately 54% of world GDP, and about 44% of world trade. The Canadian Press added, “The declaration said this goal should build on regional groupings such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a free-trade agreement that nine APEC members are negotiating.”
