Manitoba shows willingness to take first steps toward trade strategy

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/04/2024 (531 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In the recent provincial budget, the Kinew government spoke out loud about the fact that, for the last several years, Manitoba has not had a comprehensive trade strategy.

It also committed to “increasing its investment” in developing such a strategy.

While other jurisdictions in Canada have sustained investments in the export development side over the past several years, it’s good to see the current Manitoba government is not throwing up its hands, despite the past willful disregard for that important avenue of economic development and the reality undertaking such a strategy might not bear fruit for some time.

André Brin, CEO of World Trade Council Winnipeg, and other industry advocates say they are encouraged by the news.

It’s not as if export trade has evaporated without such a strategy. For instance, processed food exports from Manitoba have increased by 70 per cent since 2018; non-U.S. international trade was up 9.9 per cent in 2023.

But for some, such as Carlo Dade, director of the Trade and Investment Centre at the Canada West Foundation, Manitoba may have had the potential for even greater activity if there was a more structured approach to export development and a long-term commitment.

Dade has long advocated for something like an export culture or at least a much deeper strategic understanding of potential trading partners’ markets, economies, politics and demographics.

“Fifteen years ago, we all thought China was a great market,” he said. “But there is a helluva lot more you need to know about China besides the fact that they want to buy a lot of grain.”

Dade is deeper in the weeds in international trade dynamics than most, but it’s not hard to understand his analysis the international trade from Manitoba — and elsewhere across the Prairies — is transactional.

“There was an acknowledgment that the Chinese market represented a good trade opportunity, but did we have the capacity to understand what we were getting into? Did we establish a long-term relationship? I would argue that is where we failed,” he said.

Dade is trying to fund a Prairies-wide international trade resource that could provide some of that foreign market intel the provinces could use. Dade said he is currently helping one province develop its own Indo-Pacific trade strategy (he would not say which one).

Like others interested in such developments, he remembers fondly the days when then-Manitoba premier Gary Doer met regularly with western U.S. governors and law makers.

Doer (who led the provincial government from 1999 to 2009) even signed a memorandum of understanding calling for annual get-togethers between those governors and Prairies premiers. Those meetings did not continue after he stepped down.

While Doer may have been able to pursue the relationships he developed stateside in his next job as the Canadian ambassador to the U.S., the Prairie premiers no longer meet regularly with the western U.S. governors.

Who knows how to characterize the deficit that may have resulted from the absence of those interactions, but it’s not hard to imagine a greater understanding between the regions of the two countries would have ensued, if not higher trade volumes.

Dade is also a big fan of Canadian membership in free trade groups (as opposed to bilateral trade agreements), arguing there is a more rigorous adherence to rule of law and dispute resolution mechanisms in organizations like the North American free trade group and Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership than there is the World Trade Organization.

Dade was not interested in criticizing previous or current provincial leadership, but the NDP government was inclined to include in its 2024 budget documents the fact “Manitoba has not had a comprehensive trade strategy or robust trade programming for the past several years” and it intends to have “a renewed focus on trade relationships and expanding export capacity,” which suggests it was not a pressing issue with the previous Tory government.

Trade missions led by politicians are not the only answer, but it’s something. Last week, a large trade Manitoba delegation led by Premier Wab Kinew was in Washington, D.C. This week, Minister for Advanced Education and Training Renée Cable is in South Korea as part of a Team Canada trade mission.

Dade’s said his industry sources told him Kinew made a great impression in Washington.

That in itself is not a trade strategy, but it suggests at least a willingness to get out there and start the process of deepening contacts.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca