Protesters trying to stop next week's meeting of World Trade Organization ministers should wake up and learn about the issues the meeting is trying to solve, International Trade Minister Pierre Pettigrew said yesterday.
"If they want to stop us, fine, good luck," Pettigrew said at the Sheraton Centre on René Lévesque Blvd., where the talks are to take place.
"But they should bear the responsibility that what they're really trying to do is screw the African cotton farmers and the African HIV victims."
Pettigrew said the very issues the discussions are trying to solve include improving access to medicine for people in developing countries and cutting heavy subsidies the U.S. pays its cotton farmers, which deflate the price of cotton worldwide.
Protesters elsewhere "have now come to terms with the fact that globalization, a bit like the industrial revolution a few centuries ago, is a revolution of technological progress," he said.
Pettigrew expressed confidence in the ability of the Montreal police force to handle any demonstrations.
Next week's informal meeting will be a warmup session for trade ministers to determine what issues need to be addressed at their next encounter in Cancun, Mexico, he said.
It will provide a chance for ministers to move away from their scripted texts and demonstrate some flexibility.
"This is basically a meeting that will want to weed out the issues, so that when we arrive in Cancun we're already hot," Pettigrew said.
Twenty-six ministers, representing 70 per cent of the world's population, are to attend discussions focused on the Doha development agenda from Monday to Wednesday.
Launched in November 2001, the Doha agenda aims to establish a more equitable approach to international trade for developing and least-developed countries by the end of 2004.
The meeting in Cancun in September will be a midterm review of the three-year Doha round of trade talks.
Pettigrew said no decisions will be made in Montreal.
Ministers will participate in three working sessions: determining the level of ambition regarding the Doha agenda, understanding what is necessary for developing countries to want to integrate into the global economy and establishing other topics that should be addressed in this round of talks.
Pettigrew said the addition of other issues, such as investment, competition, and transparency, will depend on how much other governments want to achieve.
"I can tell you right away that Canada has a very high level of ambition in this Doha round, in agriculture, in industrial goods ... but we want to check with the other members," he said.
"I believe it is going to be a very exciting meeting."
Pettigrew said he plans to use the meeting to promote Canada's beef industry in hopes of reopening international borders to Canadian beef.
Alberta beef will be on the menu, he said, although alternative choices will be available.
nalcoba@thegazette.canwest.com
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