AUSTRALIA's pork industry will continue to push for Canadian pork subsidies to be cut, after negotiations raised the issue at the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) discussions in Auckland recently.
The TPP is a free-trade negotiation between a group of 11 nations, including the US and New Zealand, which Canada joined in June last year despite opposition from Australian and other pork producers.
Australian Pork Limited (APL) senior policy analyst Sam Lawrence, who attended the negotiations, said he encouraged Canadian officials to acknowledge the views of their own Agriculture Minister that at least one program was "completely countervailable", contrary to the TPP's free-trade principles.
"We believe their subsidies are countervailable - (Minister) Gerry Ritz said they were in 2010," he said.
"(Canadian subsidies) effectively operate as export subsidies, displacing domestic production in Australia and elsewhere."
Mr Ritz's comments related to the Ontario Risk Management Program (RMP) - "if it ever paid out in any significant way" - which he has refused to endorse.
Mr Lawrence said a countervailable subsidy was one where measures can be imposed to offset its effect.
This could be done through import duties, which go against the free-trade aims of the TPP.
An Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report said Canadian pork producers received $113 million in support payments in 2011.
The latest ABS figures show Canadian pork is Australia's third highest pork import, behind the US and Denmark, accounting for 19 per cent of total imports.
The figures also show Australia had exported a total of 35,052 tonnes of pork in the 10 months to October 2012, while importing more than four times that amount.
Mr Lawrence said the $113m figure, based on the OECD's Producer Support Estimates, was unreliable and "on the far, far low side" of subsidies given to Canadian pig producers.
He said without subsidies, the pork industry in the province of Quebec - representing one-quarter of Canadian production - would collapse, leading to less exports.
The analyst said APL, supported by Australian Government negotiators, would be following the issue up at the next round of discussions, scheduled for Singapore in early March.
"The Ontario RMP is a countervailing subsidy, not in the spirit of the TPP," he said.
In a statement to Stock & Land, Mr Ritz said Canada's programs were "fully compliant" with their international agreements, and they hoped for an ambitious outcome to the TPP negotiations.
Victorian Farmers Federation Pig Group president John Bourke has previously said if Canada wanted to be a part of the free-trade agreement they needed to remove the "unfair competitive advantage" their subsidies provided.
Victoria accounts for 22 per cent of the national pig herd.