Article content continued

The advantage of a big deal like the TPP is that Canada gets to be there at the table with the major players and make a conscious choice about what it wants that new order to be. The likely alternative is not an end to liberalization; the likely alternative is that the major players would do their own bilateral deals and set the world’s regulatory and environment agenda in a haphazard, ad hoc way, with less opportunity for Canada to influence it.

Optimists say there could be something close to a deal for the TPP by the end of 2014. If that doesn’t happen, if regional deals go the way of the interminable World Trade Organization negotiations, Stephen Harper’s trade legacy starts to look a lot less significant. The same is true if the countries come away from this process with a handful of insignificant concessions. The TPP could be the template for a new economic world order – and in many ways, a new political world order too. Or it could fizzle.

Canada can’t do anything about the potential for delays in the U.S. Congress or about Japan’s agricultural protectionism. It could show ambition and vision by setting out a plan to end supply management in dairy, poultry and eggs, which irks our trading partners because it effectively closes off much of Canada’s market to imports.

If the government truly believes open borders are the future, it must know that supply management will die one day. So far, its strategy seems to be to kill it very slowly and hope no one notices until the death throes, which will be some other prime minister’s problem. The deal with Europe includes an increase in cheese imports. If the TPP or other deals keep nibbling away at supply management, dairy and poultry farmers might well get wise and turn against the government.