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The Manitoba Co-operator | March 31, 2016
Our final brush with winter?
This photo was taken on the Bennie farm March 22 after a five-inch snowfall, which was the biggest snowfall of the winter in this area.
Canada-Europe trade deal on track for scheduled implementation CETA includes protection of the state’s right to regulate in many areas, says the top Canadian negotiator BY ALEX BINKLEY Co-operator contributor
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“We wanted to make sure that there’s a very clean line between the government’s right to regulate and the rights of investors to be able to challenge any impact of those regulations.”
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senior European Union politician says he’s hopeful the Canada-Europe free trade agreement will come into effect on schedule, sometime in 2017. Bernd Lange, chair of the European Parliament’s trade committee, made the comments while visiting Ottawa and Montreal for a series of intensive meetings that are part of the committee’s final assessment of STEVE VERHEUL the deal. However, for that to happen, the deal has to win final approval in both Canada and Europe committee that even if parts of before the end of 2016, or very the deal have to be ratified by individual EU members, that early in the new year, he said. Artis Pabriks, a Latvian MEP will come after the European and the standing rapporteur for Parliament has approved it. That will result in about 95 trade with Canada, was upbeat about the conclusion of the deal. per cent of the deal coming into “It’s probably the most effect with the final five per cent advanced trade agreement in subject to member ratification. He told NDP MP Tracey the world,” he said. “It’s part of the European Union in a global Ramsey that he’s confident the deal will be ratified in Europe. world.” “I visited the majority of the The deal will bring economic benefits to both Canadians and EU member states over the past couple of years and there’s strong Europeans, he said. After almost 17 months of support in all of the member negotiations, Canada and the states, even the smaller ones see European Union announced significant new opportunities in February they had agreed that could arise,” Verheul said. The Canada-Europe trade on a legal text for a proposed free trade deal and suggested it agreement breaks new ground would be ratified by the end of in the world of international trade deals because it categorithis year and in effect in 2017. Steve Verheul, the chief Canadian negotiator for the deal, See more CETA on page 33 SEC-RR2Y-MB15-Bnr_SEC_BRANDON15_BnrFBCqxd 2015-10-20 11:57 PM Page 1 has told the Commons trade
cally states in any investorstate dispute, the state always reserves the right to regulate in many areas, he said. That right was clarified in various sections of the agreement including the investment chapter following the end of initial negotiations. “We have additional protections for areas like environment and labour, that type of thing,” Verheul said. “We wanted to make sure that there’s a very clean line between the government’s right to regulate and the rights of investors to be able to challenge any impact of those regulations.” Verheul told Conservative MP Randy Hoback that the process for resolving disputes between Europe and Canada has been modified to make it more independent and transparent. Both sides were satisfied with the outcome. “When we started discussing the changes to the investment chapter, we found that we were pursuing similar goals,” Verheul said. The goal is to have science be the basis for all trade decisions, he said. That will include better regulatory co-operation, something he noted both jurisdictions are taking seriously by facilitating dialogue between regulators in Canada and the EU as new regulations are developed. Harmonizing existing regulations is difficult, although work in that area is continuing, he said. The bigger focus is on making sure future regulations never become a barrier.
photo: Sharlene Bennie
It might be feed, but it’s not necessarily feed wheat Reporting winter wheat as feed wheat, just because it happened to be fed to animals, ignores the true grade of the crop BY ALLAN DAWSON Co-operator staff
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anitoba winter wheat growers might be inadvertently cheating themselves out of crop insurance coverage by misreporting the grades they’re growing. They grow it for feed, they either feed it or sell it to someone who does — so when it’s time to fill out crop insurance paperwork, farmers naturally list it as grading “feed” regardless how good the crop actually was. It won’t affect their immediate claim, or individual longterm coverage — but over time it will lower the overall coverage for the class, in the form of the province-wide grade guarantee for winter wheat. “Part of the obligation of our (crop insurance) program is to insure producers from a quality perspective no better than the long-term average,” David Van Deynze, Manitoba Crop Insurance Corporation’s claims services manager, said in an interview March. 23. That long-term average is determined by the data reported to MCIC by producers, which makes the misreporting a potential issue for farmers. “If winter wheat growers are always reporting their crop as grading feed because that’s the market they sold to, but that’s not the grade, we’re going to look at this data over the long
term and say, ‘look, winter wheat is most often grading feed,’ and that’s what the grade guarantee will become,” he said. That price will typically be lower, which at the end of the day will translate into lower coverage for farmers, Van Deynze said. “We’re aware of the potential for that to happen and we’re trying to figure out a way to make sure it doesn’t negatively impact producers,” he said. The easiest way is for farmers to get a grade from the feed mill or other buyer they can include in their Harvest Production Report to MCIC. The need to accurately report winter wheat grades to the Manitoba Agricultural Services Corporation was raised during the Winter Cereals Manitoba annual meeting in Portage la Prairie March 16. Growers should also note that not all winter wheat is necessarily the same when it comes to grade guarantees under crop insurance. The grade guarantee for CDC Falcon winter wheat is No. 1 Canada Western General Purpose (CWGP). Although CDC Falcon is a winter wheat and listed in Manitoba Agricultural Services Corporation’s winter wheat category, it’s in the Canadian Grain Commission’s CWGP class. The same applies for other winter wheats in the CWGP class. allan@fbcpublishing.com
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