@Brad Jaffy – “Prime Minister’s office readout of Trudeau’s phone call with Trump”
“White House readout of the very same call. Um…”
@Brad Jaffy – “Prime Minister’s office readout of Trudeau’s phone call with Trump”
“White House readout of the very same call. Um…”
Read: Trudeau got nowhere with the call. Trudeau is out of his depth.
t la doo: But why now?
trump: Because it’s 2017
The us exports of milk into Canada is such a lame ridiculous argument. Those products are likely specialty cheeses or industrial ingredients for products manufactured in Canada by American companies.
“Of course you know this means war.” – Bugs Bunny
The US has a $550 million – $110 million = $440 million dairy trade deficit with the US. Why hasn’t the US already taxed the crap out of Canadian dairy products. It is clearly dumping. Softwood lumber subsidies, however, reside within the head of US lumber executives. Four time NAFTA and/or the WTO have said so.
Perhaps it’s time for Canada to tax the subsidies out of California produce. Those would be primarily relating to government support of water programs and the ignoring of US immigration law to allow for cheap agricultural labour.
Posing on the part of the Pony. He wants to appear that he has a set of stones, and is standing up to the evil Trump. Consistent with his taking in illegal immigrants – must appeal to his echo chamber, who all suffer from TDS.
Now if the Don has simply decided to kill some Canadian soldiers while shouting “Allah Akbar” maybe the Pony would have tried his “reach out and understand root causes” pose rather than his “I am a man…. really….look how I talk tough”
More posing. Cuz that is all he (or any liberal) knows how to do.
Comparing the two notes underscores the old saying, “A real lion… doesn’t have to say anything to prove it is a lion.”
Looks like the WH forgot to translate the ah ah ah.uh ah ah ah’s.
That’s not what is going on. See my comments above. There already is a 300% tariff on dairy imports to Canada.
They forgot to ask Butts for the translation.
Or better yet…they ignored/ripped up/laughed at his ‘suggested’ memo.
I would love to see the Dairy Marketing Board obliterated…if thats the price for removing tariffs on softwood lumber…have at er. Lets see true free trade.
But the real problem with so much of our Nation is that most industry, especially heavy industry is still stuck in the 1960’s as far as technology is concerned. One often hears of studies showing Canada’s Productivity levels are third world at best…if we as a country want to get beyond being Hewers of Wood, we need to get on the bandwagon and provide industry with incentives to innovate and get said productivity up to where we become competitive not based on protectionism but based on excellence of product and the ability to produce said product competitively via the use of technology.
For ten years as a Manufacturers rep for a Leading manufacturer of Automated Welding systems, I saw too many shops across this country using tech that had not changed since it was invented in the 1940’s in the production of Pressure Vessels. Slow – labour intensive and when shown (if they would even listen), tech that could literally cut their production costs by 30%...”yea well, we’ve been doing it this way for years”, and besides your stuff is too expensive was the all too often answer. Those that did buy-in so to speak, never looked back. A perfect Example would be those companies engaged in fabricating wind towers (not that I am a proponent of that BS),…but they used this new tech and NOT ONE Vessel shop in Canada that had been doing this kind of thing could even come close to breaking even let alone make margin….
Unions have not helped one bit either…dragging their useless (_i_)’s and resisting pretty much each and every step. Total lack of vision with those Marxist pricks.
That is something our Governments both Conservative and Liberal have failed miserably at. Although I give Steven Harper credit for making our Oil / Gas Industry a world leader – Saudi Price War notwithstanding, the Liberals have done squat for any of our industries other than tax the daylights out of them. As have Provincial NDP/Liberal Govt’s across the land.
I’m not a Macro economist…but thats what I saw and still see today…
‘The happy warrior from Squandermania’
Churchill’s comment about Lloyd George
Removing the government legislated cartel that is supply management in exchange for the removal of the softwood tariff is never going to happen. It would mean providing a benefit for a western sector over an eastern one.
There is nothing wrong with Canada remaining and actually doubling down on being hewers and drawers. The profit margins are much higher per unit of labour and with a growing world economy demand will only increase. In those sectors – oil, lumber, mining and ag sectors lthat aren’t under supply management the technology used and developed is second to none.
I agree with all your comments on this thread, Gord, but not parts of this last one. The reason for lack of export of Canadian milk is that because supply management has driven the cost up so high, we’re priced out of US markets by a lot. It has also demolished Canada’s former dominance in manufactured product from whole milk.
Before WW1, one of Canada’s largest exports by dollar value was cheese. We were a huge net exporter. But the onset of supply management demolished that industry with year over year declines in production and export until we get to the present day where Canada is a large net importer of cheese. And it’s things like cheese where the real value added is. Most of Canada’s milk export comes only in the form of powdered milk for animal feed, and this is probably the lowest value added export.
But the basic thrust of this thread is right; the supply management system has to go, completely. When you factor in currency exchange rates, there’s no reason why Canada can’t resume over time its former status as a large net producer of cheese.
Long and short of it is that the Americans are dead wrong on softwood lumber and right on dairy supply management.
Have you read the tweets in reply? You should see the Twitterati miss the point totally.
Who to believe? Who to believe?
Neither.
Both are certified and exposed liars.
Or purveyors of political spin; as our pathetic, complicit media would phrase it.
Food and Agriculture trade is a weak place for President trump to wage a fight over. US enjoys a $3B trade advantage with Can (2015 data), al those fruit and vegetables, even in dairy products that have a surplus.
The complaint by the Wisconsin dairy farmers involve about 70 producers according to the original story. What they, or Trump is not saying is that dairy production is heavily subsidized by the US taxpayer.There are several subsidies including export subsidy, some going back to depression era, the most recent is a 2014 bill called the
Dairy Producer Margin Protection Program, an insurance program highly subsidized by US taxpayers — that pays dairy
farmers when the national margin on milk sales falls below
a set threshold.
Like all such programs they encourage over production and resulting lower prices; this is what is happening now with US dairy production.
The estimate of these subsidies is about $US 3-4B
Canada pays no direct, taxpayer funded subsidies to dairy producers; this is an essential difference. Consumers of Can dairy products may pay an indirect subsidy, born only by those buying the products.
Supply management and subsidized dairy production are reverse sides of a coin. the reason SM survived trade negotiations with the US (recently TPP) is that they are reluctant to give up their direct subsidies.Trade negotiations are a 2 way exercise, US producers cannot enjoy heavy subsidies, produce all they can and export the excess.
Supply Management has significant drawbacks and is open to much criticism. Changes to the system can be discussed but to abandon the whole system without corresponding concessions from trading partners is not an option any government would enact.
Bruce Muirhead Un Waterloo has studied Supply Management and produced this paper.
https://www.cigionline.org/sites/default/files/cigi_paper_30.pdf
Spanked, and sent to his room without dinner.
“Long and short of it is that the Americans are dead wrong on softwood lumber and right on dairy supply management.”
Absolutely correct cgh and verifies the comment from Tulk that this situation is just fine with our Liberal government with most of their electoral interests in the East and they don’t give a rat’s arse about the West.
I don’t think there is any dispute that Trump has a long memory.
Its probably also true that Trump decided to run for Potus after the embarrassment at the White House Correspondents dinner by Obumbles.
When Trump won the first primary (I predicted then he would be Potus)Turdeau la doo made some very nasty and derogatory comments about Trump. I said at the time it would come back to bite him(i.e. us) in the ass.
We are seeing that play out now.
You get what you vote for. This would not be as serious a problem if Harper was still pm.
We should be careful at all times about giving up control of our trade in exchange for cheaper goods. Having said that supply management of dairy products should almost certainly be ditched.
A very wise man once said that you should be careful about pulling down fences before you understand why they were put up.
did the Ottawa readout take longer than the phone call? LOL !!!
We are wrong on dairy. The Yanks are wrong on softwood lumber. Fix it. The food safety argument is bogus on its face.
Let dairy farmers service whatever market they wish on both sides of the border, subject of course to local health standards yada yada.
No more of the Quebec dairy industry tail wagging the nation’s farmers. Let them stand on their own instead of hiding behind protectionism.
Maybe when we get that crap sorted out we can actually look into having free trade between the provinces.
Maybe Canada could lead the way in looking at dealing with agricultural subsidies, showing foremost nation resin, punching above our weight.
That would be a good thing. Oh, right. Sorry I forgot Stephen Harper isn’t our PM anymore, we have a Ken doll instead.
At least now we’re not appealing to our worst instincts, like getting our son off a pot conviction. We’re poorer, but we feel better about it, eh?
All forms of protectionism, whether duties, tariffs, or supply management result in higher costs to consumers. Subsidies have the opposite effect at the expense of the taxpayers. The Canada US softwood lumber dispute has been going on since Canadian provinces more or less stopped creating private land through land grants in the mid 1800s. This can be seen in the latest duties where JD Irving is assessed a 3% duty reflecting his almost exclusive production from private land whereas Western producers operating on Crown land got the full 20%. Deeming production from Crown land as subsidized is an easy claim but technically more difficult to prove. BC, responsible for half of softwood exports to the US doesn’t help the situation when it is the only province in Canada with provincial and federal restrictions on log exports giving the Americans all the ammo they need for their allegations. Despite the restrictions, most of Coastal BC wouldn’t be producing any logs if they didn’t export about what is now about a third of Coastal log production. The Coast of BC produces more wood than Canada’s entire domestic market and more than the entire US national forest on a land base 1/32 of the mostly green-sterilized US federal lands. Most of this production goes to Asia. As in the past, after dancing around legalities and dispute processes, a negotiated agreement will eventually arrive with Canada / US consumers losing less than the initial duties until it expires again.
As for dairy supply management, unless Mad Max is a future PM, I don’t see that changing either.
Correction: Vancouver Island alone produces that volume and is 1/32 the size of the USNF. The Island is responsible for 2/3 of Coastal production.
To which Yosemite Trump replied “Say your prayers varmint”.
There is a risk to going to court. Sure Canada has won 4 times at the WTO but what happens when we lose? This is not the way to run a country.
Canada hues wood and draws water. We have resources for sale. Our best option at this time is to negotiate trade agreements and not run the risk of the courts.
The US drives a hard bargain and so should we. This round of talks will be particularly nasty. So what? The Americans need our 2×4’s we have some leverage.
As for dairy, let the market decide. Coddling a few inefficient frenchmen who make up 50% of the dairy industry makes no sense.
Coddling a few inefficient frenchmen who make up 50% of the dairy industry makes no sense.
Repeating this often here does not make it so. Quebec’s share of national quota is 42.4% and those are Canadian farmers.
Large but somewhat short of 50%, Ont share is 32.5 and Sask is2.7% see http://www.dairyinfo.gc.ca/index_e.php?s1=dff-fcil&s2=quota&s3=prov
The point is all provinces signed onto the plan in 1970 and 9 provinces participate (not sure of Nfd) the market shares roughly correspond to the historic shares. Sask has about 159 dairy farms, Alta 551. The plan cannot accurately be described as a Quebec plot; its author was Eugene Whalen and Ont MP.
There is ample room to criticize SM without resorting to inaccuracies. And to negotiate changes, our trading partners have to be willing to give up some of their massive subsidies. (See above US direct subsidy for dairy $3-4B)
Canada has no direct taxpayer dairy subsidy.
The study by Bruce Muirhead is worth reading, subsidies are discussed in the last page.
Exactly. Maybe industrial milk products for, say, chocolate bars. List of ingredients on various food products often show some sort of milk product as an ingredient.
cgh, well said.
Two people above have argued here that we’re wrong on the dairy issue. Can you provide some kind of evidence for that argument?
My admittedly limited understanding is that we’ve a baroque supply management system that elevates the prices of everything dairy, with consumers ultimately paying the price.
US producers have evidently found an elegant loophole in NAFTA; ultrafiltered (diafiltered) milk gets treated for tariff purposes as transformed into protein powder (0 duty) then when it’s in Canada, transforms magically back into milk and gets sold as a precursor ingredient of cheese.
This wipes out the ability of Canadian producers (who have also had to purchase dairy quotas) to compete on price if the prices are fixed at some arbitrarily high level as they traditionally have been.
So Canada lowers the prices and reclassifies (some) diafiltered milk.
Our supply system is baroque and broken. Granted. But how are we the bad guys here currently?
Thanks in advance for educating me.
Here’s some wider perspective.
In this dispute who is taking action (rightly or wrongly) and who is reacting (again rightly or wrongly)?
Juxtapose this to the fact that both Trump and juthtin campaigned on activist agendas. Trump was going to make America great again and juthtin was contending that he was not just ready for the job but that he was ready right now.
Now I have also seen out in the social media bubble a meme that PMSH should have taken care of this ergo not juthtins fault. But I also recall that PMSH was criticised if he or his government apportioned fault on the previous government for lack of action on a file and liberals would cry out that wasn’t fair.
But I digress.
There is currently a stark contrast between the Canadian and US government administration. The Trump taking a direction that seeks to reduce bureaucracy and taxes and see a growth in US manufacturing. In Canada the government seeks to impose greater restrictions on growth through environmental laws and increased taxes with the added risk of increased government debt.
It appears that when Trump assumed the office juthtin had already been in office for almost a year at his disposal to implement his adgenda, yet he seemed unprepared for Trump’s victory and the change in direction of the US. This didn’t have the appearance of someone ready or for that matter ready right now. Contrast that to Trump’s actions from the day he won the election to inauguration day and you could percieve something was happening.
So with this in mind consider which one is taking action and who is playing catchup?
Its always after you make a post the afterthought comes.
After the “call” did Trump change his mind?
No?
Not even a pledge to think about it?
Nada.
Then I can say both versions are true. Juthtin talked and Trump put the phone on speaker and responded with a “unhum” finishing the call with “nice talking to you I gotta run justine”.
Wow.
Trudeau’s handlers sure know how to make it look like Trudeau is doing some actual work.
Trump just doesn’t care.
Canada brought half of these troubles on itself.
You are quite correct. Trudie hasn’t “played nice” with Trump since he announced his run for President. Smart people will realize that this trade war is Trump’s retaliation for the continual disrespect from Trudie and his National Propaganda Bureau the CBC. Trudie is too stupid to realize that being an asswhole neighbor has consequences.
Really don’t understand what the big deal is over these press releases. Both agreed that they talked about dairy and lumber. Trump release says amicable discussion. Period. Trudeau release sounds defensive and aggressive (= political). So what. They both agreed to keep talking.
So why the over the top reaction? Both sides have technical experts for this sort of thing. They’ll sort it out. Meanwhile on twitter, the twits are sounding very ignorant …. but that’s normal. Why does anyone bother with this useless communication method. It’s always both insulting and superficial and represents the collective ignorance of only a few dozen political partisans. WHO CARES what they think?
Good summary. Trudie is way in over his head, and his handlers were totally unprepared for a Trump presidency. The Lieberals will fumble and bumble along for the next two years because there’s no checks and balances to dispose them. By the time 2019 rolls around the majority of Canadians outside the GTA-Ottawa-Montreal lieberal-bubble are going to be so pissed off with the Lieberals, that a regime change will be inevitable.
“Smart people will realize that this trade war is Trump’s retaliation for the continual disrespect from Trudie and his National Propaganda Bureau the CBC.”
In the case of softwood lumber, the US action was as predictable and expected as night following day regardless of who is POTUS, certainly by anyone to the left of Rand Paul. I wouldn’t call this a trade war either. Trade wars are characterized by massive retaliatory duties all around, a form of economic mutually assured destruction.
Trade war, trade conflict, trade disagreement… the labels don’t make much differnce. Trump said he would put America first; that’s exactly what he’s doing. Trudie has made it abundantly clear that he will always place his muslime brothers ahead of Canadians.
Harper would know how to handle this. Maybe the leftists should hire David Emerson, but with the shoddy treatment he received from Liberals, I guess that is not going to happen
Juthtins handlers seem really concerned about the “first post national state” with “no core identity”… Perhaps its time for a Juthtin selfie or a media lead PR campaign where Juthtin talks about his womyns issues and how he and his crazy family are above the law, perhaps a somersault, maybe a couple of bong hits, whatever it is that that half-wit does. That should impress upon the President just how serious the globalist actor from the “first post national state” “with no core identity” really is man.
Quebeks portion of the population is about 27%. Their portion of the dairy quota is 42%???? Is that their portion of the fluid quota or the industrial quota?
It wasn’t many years ago when pizza joints in Canada were smuggling cheese from the US to make pizza. The Thursday nite special had cheese on it. Then along came a new dairy product that produced a new type of fake mozzarella. Voila – game on. Pizza boys have access to a new product and the dairy boys have something that is outside of NAFTA. They then proceed to screw it up and the entire system is now about to be brought down by a few Canadian dairy fools who misjudged the market, but that’s another story.
Sure there is no direct tax subsidy to dairy. Don’t need it when you have a massive consumer tax that inflates the cost to the most vulnerable – the poor. Somebody pointed out here this week that a gallon of milk in the US was .99 cents ( about $1.30C). What is it here? $5.00+.
I remember Eugene Whelan well. Big green cowboy had but bigger librano. Told us westerners that if we want to sell wheat to Russia that we had to purchase tractors from them. Belarus (pronounced bell-air-us) tractors appeared on the prairies. They had a seat configuration that included space for a mechanic named Igor that was supplied with the purchase. Oil leaks while still new at the dealership were not uncommon and if you had to haul one home you needed extra wheels (on the trailer) because they were beyond heavy. Stuck all the time. Eugene Whelan was a friend of the west the same way his boss was.
I’ve been along the north shore and looked at quebek dairy farms. Small (25-30) cows, inefficient. A way of life. Hell they didn’t even have backup power on the place when they had an ice storm. Think that happens on a modern dairy farm? If the power goes out, they aren’t not going to milk. The ice storm produced mastitis at almost every quebek dairy because the cows didn’t get milked. Wonder if replacing those cows was subsidized by the taxpayer?
Supply management is a house of cards. Get rid of it. Politicians defend it because ‘it works for quebek’.
Perhaps the Liberals should have dusted off the Trudeau cardboard mannequin and put that in front of the conference phone. Who knows, it might have done better in the negotiations with Trump than Trudeau; couldn’t have done worse.
The Quebec share of Industrial and Fluid quota is even less 37.2% the figure I stated is portion of National Market Sharing Quota. Both are considerable shy of 50% (See http://www.dairyinfo.gc.ca/index_e.php?s1=cdi-ilc&s2=aag-ail) check out all the figures.
The shares reflect economic comparative advantage to some extent. Quebec farmers traditionally favoured small livestock farms and milking cows; same as Sask enjoyed a comparative advantage in grains and oilseeds.. The quota shares are not reflective of population, but rather the dairy industry as it looked in 1970. Economic geography has a huge effect on what regions specialize in obviously.
And all provinces were on board in 1970, all have their own marketing boards and are still part of the system. Thats all I am saying, dairy farms exist in each province.
Finally, their are ample arguments against the system using the actual data, which I am doing. And the study i linked by Muirhead lists the size of US direct subsidies, about 3-4 B annually, these include export subsidies.
And he points out fire sale consumer prices on US milk reflect only the cash register portion, the subsidy is paid for by fed taxes. Making the adjustment, which never is done in media comparison fluid milk prices would be comparable.
I’m not really in favour of SM but interested from a policy viewpoint how it is analyzed and compared to other systems.
Ag is subsidized by all countries.
I have never heard anyone suggest that once adjusted for federal tax that US and Canadian milk prices would be comparable. The US system is not perfect (what system is) but supply management Canadian style is indefensible. It is a direct tax on the poor. ON FOOD. What country does that?
The reality of Canadian politics comes down to this. When confronted with new issues, perhaps a trade deal, the initial question asked by our leaders is this. “What’s in it for quebek.”
That was the question when the dairy board was setup and it continues to be the question. I get it that milk doesn’t travel well. That it is produced and consumed close to home. My complaint is that dairy production in Canada is unfairly tilted to favour quebek (how much of the butter supply comes from there). Many of their farms are inefficient which adds to costs that are not subject to market forces. If was good enough in 1970 its still good enough.
The country needs to rid itself of SM. Our politicians refuse to address it but maybe this round of NAFTA talks will.
See Bruce Muirhead CIGI paper Apr 2014 read the whole paper esp re Subsidies near the end.
https://www.cigionline.org/sites/default/files/cigi_paper_30.pdf
“While the stories of Canadian cross-border shoppers in
the border communities of Bellingham, WA or Niagara
Falls, NY looking to save money on milk are legion, does
the price consumers are paying accurately reflect US
production costs? The quick answer is “no,” as the US
federal government subsidizes dairy production using
a number of instruments, including its milk marketing
orders, which set the minimum price for dairy products,
the Milk Price Support Program that keeps market prices
artificially high, and the Milk Income Loss Contract,
among others. These subsidies represent about 40 percent
of US dairy farmer incomes.
Without that hidden support, US dairy
products would be much more costly for consumers,”
And dairy is not subsidized directly by Can taxpayers which I made very clear in post 1 above, Arguments against SM are much sounder based on objective analysis, and there is much to criticize. Never enough space here to do that, thanks that’s it for me.
Martin: your point that dairy is not subsidized by taxpayers is taken. However there are many ways that the taxpayer is involved. Property tax of ag land, ag fuel tax etc.
Canadian consumers are obligated to pay a dairy tax which is exorbitant. We are arguing SM from different perspectives. We will not settle SM here and I thank you for the exchange.
Best