Iowa lawmakers celebrate Canada Day at Capitol

DES MOINES - Canadian officials highlighted the 'value chain” that connects their country with Iowa and the United States during a Statehouse visit Wednesday on Canada Day.

They also welcomed what Canadian Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs Andrew Leslie called the 'team spirit” created by Gov. Terry Branstad and Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds.

The visit was not only timely because Canada is celebrating its sesquicentennial of nationhood, but because of the current political atmosphere, said Leslie and Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall.

'In this current context, with the discussion that is happening in both countries … our prime minister has signaled that it is important we engage with our American friends at the state level and, yes, in the nation's capital, to make this case that jobs could and do depend on free and fair trade between our two countries,” Leslie said during a stop in Branstad's office.

The Canadians are willing to be part of that discussion, including the possibility of renegotiating parts of the North American Free Trade Agreement, Wall said.

'It's not all bad in terms of the Canadian side of the equation,” he said, adding there are 'some small adjustments that we can make to it.” Given changes in agriculture, especially in biotechnology, there are regulatory and trade related issues that 'probably would be reasonable,” he said.

Leslie, who was in the room last month when President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met at the White House, said Canadians are encouraged that the president has assembled a Cabinet 'that knows Canada well - retired generals with Canadian soldiers under their command, trade experts, billionaires who have business interests in Canada, and it goes both ways.”

More than trade and economic ties, the Canadian-Iowa relationship is built on shared values, Wall said.

'Our relationship represents a partnership,” he said. 'Over the years, this relationship has been bonded not just by commerce, but shared values, shared sacrifice for freedom and for human rights.”

That has led to a 'growing network of social, economic and even familial ties” that unite the state and Canada, its largest trading partner, according to resolutions adopted in the House and Senate. Trade and investment with Canada support 100,000 jobs in Iowa, according to the resolution, and the latest estimates of Iowa exports to Canada are valued at $3.8 billion a year while Iowa imports about $28.9 billion annually.

Like Iowa, Wall said, Saskatchewan is an 'agriculture powerhouse” that included 44 percent of Canada's arable acres. Its residents cannot eat all the wheat, rye and lentils they produces, 'so we must be traders … free traders and fair traders.”

Iowa, he added, has a trade surplus with Saskatchewan. Last year, his province bought $363 million of scrapers, bulldozers, graders, trailers, tractors, harvesters and other goods. Iowa bought $355 million of Saskatchewan-processed canola oil, potash and fertilizer.

'Ours is not just a trading agreement between our two counties,” he said. 'This relationship represents a value chain, an integration of our economies.

'We buy combines, tractors that are made in Waterloo, Iowa,” he said, 'and use it to harvest oats in our province that we sell you back the oats and here in Iowa you make cereal.”

As in any relationship, there are challenges. Try as he and his wife might, Wall said they could not get their children to eat Quaker oatmeal produced in Cedar Rapids.

Despite that, Wall called on the Iowans to join Canadians in continuing and enhancing the relationship.

Later, the Canadians and Branstad attended a reception at the World Food Prize Hall of Laureates.

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