Informal Heads of Delegation Meeting – July 23, 2021

Canada’s statement

For the fisheries subsidies negotiations, ministers have given us their backing to conclude a meaningful agreement ahead of the 12th Ministerial Conference (MC12). The next step is to deepen our understanding of the issues behind our different positions and then identify concrete ideas to bridge differences.

On agriculture, Members should take a step forward on domestic support by agreeing to a framework for post MC12 negotiations. An agriculture package should also include improvements in transparency on applied tariffs, domestic support, and export competition.  Members should agree to a standalone outcome that exempts World Food Program humanitarian purchases from export restrictions. On public stockholding (PSH), we remain constructively engaged and have recently presented a technical submission. For Canada, any outcome on PSH for MC12 will need to be calibrated with the level of ambition in domestic support.

For SPS, we should move forward on a ministerial declaration to ensure the SPS Agreement and Committee are well positioned to meet emerging challenges.

On trade and health, Canada remains committed to a WTO response to COVID-19 and future pandemics. We support the work of the Facilitator. We will also continue to promote the proposed Trade and Health Declaration, a revised version of which was circulated last week and will be discussed next week at the General Council.

Recognizing the important role that services play in the global economy and recovery, Canada welcomes the level of engagement in exploratory market access discussions in the Special Session of the Council for Trade in Services (CTS-SS) and is looking to move these forward.

On the three negotiating joint statement initiatives (JSIs), Canada will continue to engage constructively to make progress by MC12. On services domestic regulation, a conclusion by MC12 is possible, and the recent announcements by the U.S. and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia bring us closer.  

Canada remains ready and willing to engage on reform of the dispute settlement system.

To conclude, Chair, Canada sees the next MC as a focussed meeting that sets us on a good track for the future and has a targeted set of outcomes.

That’s our optimistic hope and we’re confident we can do it.