PublishedInternational Trade Minister Mary Ng pictured in Ottawa in 2020. Canada’s agriculture industry has been critical of what benefits CETA has been able to offer them.
It’s been five years since Canada’s free trade agreement with the European Union came into play, but the agriculture sector claims it isn’t reaching its exporting potential and continues to deal with unequal access to overseas markets — a departure from the wins Ottawa initially promised. The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, commonly known as CETA, came into provisional effect on Sept. 21, 2017, and was advertised as a deal that gave Canadian farmers unprecedented access to lucrative European markets: 98 per cent of Canadian goods were allowed to enter the EU duty-free, which eliminated custom duties that had been as high as 25 per cent.
“The Canada-EU partnership is based on shared values, a long history of close cooperation and strong people-to-people ties,” Prime Minister Trudeau said in 2016 of the agreement he also called “historic.”
Many …are wary of more red tape & looming disagreements over environmental standards amid the threat of climate change. Tap into less restrictive markets …such as China… By 2050, more than half of the population will be dependent on trade. What could go wrong?