Trade minister, former premiers agree agrifood shortchanged in trade deal.Ottawa-While the Canada-Europe free trade deal is usually described in glowing terms for its benefits to the Canadian economy, it hasn't worked out for the country's farmers, says Dan Darling, President of the Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance (CAFTA).The deal reached its third anniversary Sept. 21 and “agrifood exporters remain gravely concerned that the E.U. is not respecting the spirit of the commitments it made when negotiations concluded,” he said in a letter to four federal cabinet ministers including Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau.“Our agri-food exports to the EU should be much higher. These trade inequities are having a direct impact on Canadian farmers and food manufacturers.”Not long after CAFTA released Darling's statement Sept. 21, Trade Minister Mary Ing said the government is working to improve “E.U. market access for Canadian agricultural products through the removal of technical barriers to trade, and accelerating the accreditation of Canadian conformity-assessment bodies responsible for certifying Canadian goods to EU requirements.”And five former premiers including Kathleen Wynne of Ontario released a joint letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about their concern over the E.U.'s failure to adhere to the trade deal on agrifood. “Successfully resolving these persisting issues will help our respective world-class agriculture and agri-food sectors play a major role in driving the world's post-pandemic economic recovery.”Governments in Canada have lived up to the terms of the deal, said the former premiers of Canada's main agrifood provinces. “The E.U. must do the same and be held accountable to its trade commitment.”Darling said the removal of tariff and non-tariff barriers “was to increase Canada's exports by nearly $1.5 billion annually.” The E.U. was also supposed to work with Canada “to advance a number of non-tariff issues related to technical barriers to trade, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, regulatory cooperation, origin procedures, biotechnology, trade distorting subsidies among others.”The deal “has failed to deliver on its promises for Canada's agrifood exporters. The end-result since CETA's implementation has been an overall deterioration of Canada's agrifood trade balance with the E.U.“As a trading nation, our road to economic recovery cannot be successfully navigated unless we unblock our major trade routes,” he said. “There is no greater example of this urgency than the failure of CETA to provide the real and commercially viable market access Canada was promised.”The E.U. Commission and E.U. member states continue “to maintain a wide range of barriers, imposing new barriers or failing to reduce those that were to be lowered or eliminated altogether through CETA.”Beef and pork producers are hindered by the E.U. not recognizing the effectiveness of meat processing while canola sustainability practices “have yet to be recognized despite four years of diligent work and substantive engagement with E.U. officials,” Darling said. The E.U. also mostly ignores calls from grain growers for predictable and science-based import tolerance processes for crop protection products.Food manufacturers face production and trade distorting subsidies on sugar in the E.U. that “make our exports of sugar-containing products among other processed foods uneconomic.”While Italy's country of origin labelling (COOL) for pasta discriminates against Canadian wheat exports, “it is unquestionably offside from both the EU's commitments and law and presents the danger to spill over to other products and regions.“There is a significant danger that if left unchallenged, these trade barriers will be replicated on other commodities and in other jurisdictions, both inside and outside of the E.U.” Darling said. “Not enforcing the deal and strongly advancing Canada's export trade interests is an invitation for other countries to not respect their own trade commitments with Canada.“This does not bode well in a world with creeping protectionism and flagrant disrespect for trade rules,” he said. “For the agrifood sector to truly help power Canada's economic recovery, we believe a strong and assertive response from Canada is needed now, especially since new E.U. food and agriculture policies such as the Farm to Fork strategy could exacerbate existing barriers and potentially create new ones, which would harm Canadian exporters further. We cannot afford to let the E.U. stand in the way of Canada's economic recovery.”Alex Binkley is a freelance journalist and writes for domestic and international publications about agriculture, food and transportation issues. He's also the author of two science fiction novels with more in the works.