Discussion Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada

The paper of Knutson, Loyns and Ochoa provides a very good side-by-side comparison of each of the NAFTA partners programming, and how differ-ences could (or do) lead to trade disputes. As demonstrated in their Table 1, most of the programs are targeted at production agriculture establishing the regulatory and support framework within which production has to operate. Our understanding of how this framework functions, plus an understanding of the internal drivers that each country must deal with and the external drivers result-ing from either within NAFTA or outside it, provide the context which allows us to assess the probability that trade disputes could arise (or why current ones exist) between NAFTA partners. This is a subjective exercise and I have no reason to dispute the conclusions drawn by Knutson et al. In some traditional areas (those in Table 1) a degree of comparability exists among the three partners which should greatly reduce the potential for conflict to arise as a direct result of government programming. Areas of poten-tial problems have been highlighted, areas where the three countries have bee