The Liberal Party won an outright majority with 54 percent of the seats in Canada’s House of Commons, routing the Conservatives who had been in power for nearly a decade. At Western Producer, columnist Ed White says, “There’s one big, positive take-home for Canadian farmers: TPP has been preserved.” Liberal leader Justin Trudeau “said his [party] is pro-trade …. Now that the election’s done and the pressure’s off, it’s hard to imagine him rejecting the deal.”
The 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement “is almost certainly good for most western Canadian farmers, since they are export-dependent. And it saves supply management for the foreseeable future, even if it slightly shrinks the market,” says Western Producer. The supply management system, which includes tariffs on imports to assure a market for domestic growers, is important to poultry, dairy and egg producers, who are mainly in eastern Canada.
Canada is one of the largest U.S. agricultural trade partners.
“Much of rural Canada – the agricultural regions of the country, in particular – chose to send Conservative MPs back to Ottawa,” said RealAgriculture.
Gerry Ritz, agriculture minister since 2007, won re-election from his district in Saskatchewan, so he will remain in Parliament while losing his ministerial portfolio, said CBC News.