This should be a pivotal moment in Canada’s irrational defence of supply management. There are signs that countries like Japan and Korea are prepared to undergo structural reforms to their agricultural sectors, in exchange for a seat at the TPP table. If all the members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation organization sign on, it would mean a free trade deal encompassing half the world’s economy. Yet Canada, an APEC member, remains hostage to 7,500 dairy farmers in Quebec and 5,000 in Ontario, accounting for less than 1% of the Canadian economy.
Governments won’t do anything to confront creeping islam/sharia.
It will be left to individual ordinary people to do the task. How? I don’t know. We don’t have a choice – islam must go. How? Your call. But unless you get rid of islam in the West, we are doners sooner or later.
It’s not about radical islam, terrorism or whatever the MSM uses to label the ‘scariest’ part of it. It’s about the book of quran and its followers: the foundations of their set of beliefs is incompatible with our society to a degree where we are expendable on their way to caliphate.
Choose your sides, choose your doom.
Harper is just a liberal wearing a blue suit.
Aaron i agree with you but i think you might have the wrong thread.
I certainly get the the point made in the article,and normally I thought Harper’s CPC was very much for improving trade. Why have they been so weak on this?
Moreover, as far as I can tell, the CPC has failed to do even a tiny bit to correct some of the inequities in the agricultural sector (Wheat Board, ethanol, etc), which have often been brought up here at SDA.
Why have they been so passive?
This is not an issue I know much about, so I’d welcome some education (not rhetoric).
Can it really only be about buying a few thousand votes in Quebec… not that that’s impossible given the current discussion of paying for a Quebec arena.
Supply management is a sad reminder of how bad big government can be.
This article is just more leftist koolaid.
Supply Management extends throughout dairy, poultry eggs etc.
It is basically a weird version of Soviet collectivism…….that is not easily dismantled.
The CWB is simple compared to supply management.
The farmers involved did not enter into this voluntarilly….it was forced.
Dairy farmers in Ontario must purchase expensive quota and then conform to Milk Marketing Board edicts on how much milk they can ship—a %age of the quota they hold. Over-production is fined and under-production results in loss of quota without remuneration.
For those unaware the cost of quota is similar to the cost of the herd needed to supply that quota.
The political impact of ending supply management is indeed a political football in Quebec politics.
Quebecers are all within a generation or so from farming. Purchasing quota to end supply management could inspire protest of accusations of windfall profits from their urban cousins. Ending supply management with purchasing quota would inspire protest of victimization of the country cousins….
Because the Quebec milk/dairy product market is a closed shop…..then there is the spectre of protest that ending supply management would expose Quebec farmers from unfair competition from the ROC or the USA.
It’s a political 3rd rail.
I agree completely that supply management of a select number of farm commodities are wrong. My family’s beef operation competes for resources. But why pick on these 12,500 dairy farmers? This is the Canadian system. Taxi’s, asset managers, banking, dentists, auditing, unionized public employees, etc. all have trade unionism protection (its more than just unions). Just ask a skilled immigrant. If you think the economic impact of trade unionism is limited to milk and cheese, you’re kidding yourself. There is also the corporate welfare that is rampant.
Okay, let’s kick a few dairy farmers. You’re right, supply management is bad. But if so brave why are you ingoring Bay Street, the rest of corporate Canada, monopolistic professional bodies and the failure to bring forward right to work legislation?
The current cost of the quota for 1 milking cow in Ontario exceeds $29,000.00. the current cost of quota for 1 laying hen is $175.00. To buy equipment, land, barns, and herd for a basic dairy operation for a family farm is probably less than the quota which approaches $1,500,000.00
> Aaron i agree with you but i think you might have the wrong thread.
You right! Thanks for pointing out.
Gee, more free trade so we can buy even more Asian crap while trading them the raw material to produce the crap. Sounds smart to me, not.
Hard to compete with slave labour…
I always get a kick out of dairy farmers who complain about these kinds of articles which show how good they have it at everyone else’s expense. Everything from “boo hoo, quit picking on little ol me” to “its my god given right to gouge the consumer”.
In fairness to PM Harper, its more than just him and his triangulation. I was at the 2005 CPC convention and the delegates unabashedly supported supply management of agriculture. Here is the current policy 110 of the Conservative Party of Canada. It’s the party not the man.
110. The Conservative Party believes it is in the best interest of Canada and Canadian agriculture that the industries under the protection of supply management remain viable. A Conservative Government will support supply management and its goal to deliver a high quality product to consumers for a fair price with a reasonable return to the producer.
http://www.conservative.ca/media/2008-PolicyDeclaration-e.pdf
Not to mention all the public resources put into educating people so corporations can have ready access to managers and technical people…it’s their right to gouge the public…
Terence Corcoran, former columnist with the G&M, now business editor of the Financial Post, has been railing against our Supply Management system since, well, forever. He often compares US dairy producer productivity rates with Canadian producers: we lose! Are you surprised?
IMO, Nova Scotians are some of it’s biggest victims. When I served in the navy from ’78-’98, 4L of milk was regularly $2 more than what Ontarians paid. Farmers regularly pour excess milk down the drain b/c their quota won’t permit its sale. Teachers in some Canadian cities don’t schedule tests past the middle of the month b/c poorer families’ welfare cheques have run out, the kids come to school with empty bellies and so won’t perform as well. And we keep the price of the one miracle food high to appease one small, yet powerful, ‘squeaky wheel?’ Borderline criminal I say! Morally reprehensible for sure.
Hey anyone can write Conservative Party policy positions, here, let’s try education …
The Conservative Party believes it is in the best interest of Canada and Canadian children that the educational facilities under the protection of teacher unions remain viable. A Conservative Government will support teacher unions and their goal to deliver a high quality education to students for a fair cost to taxpayers with a reasonable wage to the teacher.
This isn’t about kicking a few dairy farmers.
It isn’t as though Alberta provinces other than Ontario and Quebec don’t have dairy farms.
From my view, it’s about maintaining a kind of internal national Mercantilism that has all other provinces being treated as mere colonies of “Central” Canada(Quebec and Ontario) instead of equal provinces in Confederation and protecting the near monopolies that Quebec and Ontario have had in manufacturing and finished exports from competition in the “hinterland colonies”.
Mercantilism
“European nations of the 17th-19th centuries attempted to put it into effect through commercial policies designed to produce a favourable balance of trade, through acquisition and development of colonies as exclusive markets and sources of raw materials, and, in England, through NAVIGATION ACTS, which made the shipping and marketing of colonial goods the monopoly of British merchants and shippers. Mercantilism was intended to benefit European powers, but it was not wholly disadvantageous to the colonies, providing a protective mantle for early development. However, it has been argued that mercantilist policies left colonial economies dependent on staple production (see STAPLE THESIS) and obstructed their industrial development.”
FROM:
http://tinyurl.com/4n9cmkm
It has ever been thus since Canada was first conceived in the 19th century but has left our nation out of step with the global economy.
(throughout Canadian history this arrangement has been to the detriment of Western Canada and the Maritimes)
Since the global economy is now circling the bowl, this may end up being a good thing after all.
I wonder how many supply management farmers even vote conservative. Why would they? The Liberals and particularly the anti-trade NDP would seem like a much better fit for them.
I am not sure why Mr. Harper and his gang think why they need to support supply management. The vast majority of the people(family and freinds)involved in SPM that I know simply vote Liberal. For them there is no other choice.They have way to many dollars tied up in quota to vote for any other party.
Breaking Stelmach is resigning
Good.
Breaking Stelmach is resigning
set you free, hardest hit.
I sympathize with the “open markets”, “free markets” advocates…and am one.
However…in the mean time…know this. There is no such thing, and never has been!
Since the time of Kings “food production” has always been used as a tool for political and manipulative reasons.
That’s why during the “Reform/Manning years as western MP’s decried the merit’s of the “free” market the ruling liberals said…”OK, you got it” and they lowered the Ag subsidies to Western Canadian farmers by 87% and quietly increased Quebec Ag subsidies that would have made European farmers blush.
Of course Harper and any PM will always and has always woke up every morning and ask the one and only question he needs to address. What does Quebec want and what does Ontario want??
Try buying cheese in western Canada that isn’t from Quebec, and doesn’t cost at least twice what it costs just across the border in Montana or Washington or ….
In BC butter is about 5 bucks a pound (oops 454 grams), in Washington state try 2 to 3 bucks a POUND. Time to defund all agencies like the wheat board, egg marketing board, etc etc etc
Where does one start in reducing discrimination in government policy?
If not protected markets where?
Is the starting place announcing “the year of the entreperneur” which means setting up more “seed” plans for Atlantic Canada and Quebec.
Is the starting point “we have to reduce the paperwork for small business”, then cavalierly stating we will just have business pick up the cost of administering a new pension plan?
Should we not import capital from poorer countries through immigration of skilled people and develop our own skilled people who just may not be as susceptible to brokerage vote gathering.
There are lots of ways to just start to change the future from an entitlement based electorate to an entreperneural society.
The difficulty is the lack of impetus to start. It will not happen with a bureaucracy put into place by entitlement focused politicians. A bureacracy looking for employment of the next generation of selectively educated children.
And it will not start with a political party who cannot trust the intelligence of the electorate. and does not have faith in the capability of the political party to “get it’s message out with the newly available communication tools.
What the hey! How should a three time successful small business entrepreneur react?
Just keep on paying taxes; look for opportunites to avoid competing against government funded companies who will destroy a market to possibly buy another 500 votes.
And by all means not let a small business go beyond twenty employees where the paperwork and tax levels mean probable failure, unless one can successfully enter the world of subsidization by government. Cheers;
I think taking down protected markets is an excellent thing to be doing… if its done -slowly-. If they just suddenly stop, Canada’s entire farming industry will go bankrupt. BAM. Just like that.
These guys carry multi-million dollar debt, every one of them. you have to give them at least ten years to get the financing and the physical plant organized to run on the new “free” market basis.
Because don’t forget, not everybody in the world plays fair. There are people who would view the destruction of Canada’s ag industry as a good thing. Just like there were people who were all happy when the textile mills here closed.
Exactly, Phantom. The enemy you cannot see is always the real danger. Constant rule changing is the purview of the left, though they may look to be on the right, their actions always betray them.
Farmers can’t be blamed for being suspicious of the next Big Idea. There have been so many…
Relax folks SM in the dairy industry is not going away. It may not be right but it isn’t going to go away anytime soon. Why? Because it is a subsidy to quebec. Sound familiar?
I have been down the north shore where a lot of these ‘farms’ are. Typically they look like this. A single driveway is shared by 2 farms. They have a miking herd of 20-25 cows. When they had an ice storm very few of them had a generator for back up power. Huh??? As a result the cows were not milked and many developed mastitis and had to be shipped
It makes one wonder what management skills these people have?
The bottom line is this. Under SM the province of quebec is guaranteed 50% of the dairy quota in Canada. Does that explain why most of the butter and cheese comes from quebec?
I was recently in MT and bought 2 lbs of ‘old’ chedder for $5.49. Canadians are paying an outrageous subsidy for dairy products. No one is more affected by this than the poor. It’s past time to rid ourselves of SM.
Hey Oz, it’s 2011, not 1911. This is a north-south country, not an east-west one.
In fairness to PM Harper, its more than just him and his triangulation. I was at the 2005 CPC convention and the delegates unabashedly supported supply management of agriculture. Here is the current policy 110 of the Conservative Party of Canada. It’s the party not the man.
so Mike you’re saying that Harper has no balls and has chosen not to be a leader in this matter. Too bad by all accounts, he’s a formidible leader when he chooses to be.
This is an East-West country, Gunnar T.
Ontario and Quebec were just musing about “nationalizing the provincial debt” in the fall of 2010.
Did you know that Western grain farmers voted to dismantle the Canadian Wheat Pool?
Yeah that really happened, not that it’s been dismantled or any moves have been made in that general direction yet.
And what happens if those farmers dare to sell their own grain?
Prison, just like under mercantilism.
Same thing would happen if the Springbank Cheese Company of Alberta tried to sell their cheese nationwide or internationally.
Ever heard of the Crow Rate, Gunner T?
Look it up.
They just got rid of it.
The Crow Rate was a very clear example of mercantilist economic policy coming out of Eastern Canada.
In BC butter is about 5 bucks a pound (oops 454 grams), in Washington state try 2 to 3 bucks a POUND.
We buy “no name” butter in Alberta @ Walmart/No Frills/Sobey’s for $2.98 / lb.
abtrapper@5:49 This past summer I as well traveled through southern Quebec farm country. The thing that struck me was the appearance of many small dairy farms. Seem’s to me like they were stuck in year 1960. Not exactly progress.
FB@7:35- I thought about saying the farms appeared out of step with modern agriculture but was reluctant. The point is, dairy farming in quebec is a life style free of competition. The small size of the farm guarantees inefficiencies and the industry is protected by phoney government regulation. The consuming public pays heavily for this.
In the west the dairy industry is increasingly being taken over by Dutch immigrants and Hutterites. The ‘dairymen’ in quebec should come out west and watched either of the above mentioned operate a dairy. The quebecker is lost in the 60’s hiding behind his subsidy.
not paid full price for a block of cheese for at least 5yrs, maybe 10! Some store around is usually selling it for 3-4bucks. in NB
Just wait until the Feds have to buy out the quota holders in poultry and dairy. Guarenteed the Ontario and Quebec govs will hand this steaming hot spud to the Feds… international trade and all that.
I suspect the people piling into dairy (mainly dutch immigrants in my area) are amassing quota with an eye towards buyout. They’ll milk the system in the meantime, because dairy makes money… if you have the two million plus required to buy in.
Of course, no more supply management and a loose border in terms of food inspection probably means no dairy farmers will be able to make a living wage if the system is dismantled. The US will dump milk (their feed stock is subsidized, remember) and flood the market with poultry.
Quebec’s farming culutre is different than in English Canada. They like those small dairy farms as productive cultural artifacts. Keeps bodies and cash in the countryside instead of jamming more bodies into already crowded cities.
Canada has got to be the only place in the world where it is cheaper to eat the cow than drink its milk. Cheese used to be a good source of food for the poor, here it is a luxury for the rich. I was asking the cheese merchant at St Lawrence Market in Toronto for various dairy products and was told that they were unavailable in Canada. The imported cheese that he did have was subject to a 300% tarif.
The worst part of it is that it is all counter productive. I have read that New Zealand used to have a system much like ours with all its flaws and a shrinking local dairy market, as no one could afford to buy cheese anymore. They scrapped the system and in short order New Zealand became one of the biggest dairy producers in the world – a friend who was there recently told me that cows now outnumber sheep. Now that their marketing board is gone they supply milk to all of SE Asia. A market that they didn’t used to have. Rather than assuming we can’t compete, we should get out their and try.
‘the bear’, I’m saying Harper liking supply management of certain agricultural products puts him onside with the membership of the Conservative Party since that is what the members decided they wanted as party policy.
correction – we should get out THERE and try.
thank you fro your indulgence. Its past my bed time.
It gets more apparent every day we have to
have a new Constitution that ends this Court run soft tyranny.
Lets start with a real bill of rights with private property. Right now where putting band aids on a social leprosy, caused by a leftist document that concentrates power in one region. Thats has abandoned individual rights in favor of collective mediocrity.
Kill the Charter, lets get a real document for free people. otherwise nothing will change except more creeping decrepitude.
JMO
Oh, for pity’s sake!
Will you please stop saying dairy management is all about Quebec farmers? There are more dairy farmers in Ontario than in Quebec (and more egg farms as well) which virtually everyone above seems to ignore. And if you care to look at an electoral map, many of the Tory seats in Ontario are in the rural areas where those farmers live and vote. There’s a huge chunk of blue Ontario that would turn red in a heartbeat if the Tories did away with supply management. (Not that I’m defending supply management, but the political reality is more about Ontario than Quebec, where most of those farmers are in BQ ridings.)
Does it cost us? Of course – milk in Buffalo right now is $1 per US half-gallon (~ 2 l) vs. $3.99 for 4 l in Toronto. Eggs are on sale in Toronto for $1.99/doz, while $1/doz in Buffalo. We pay through the nose for supply management. I’d like to see some of you suggest a politically viable way to end this system, instead of just railing about it. (For me, ending the massive disparity between rural votes – 5-10k electors per riding- and urban votes – 60-80k electors per riding – would be a start.)
And what’s all this about Quebec cheese? Unless I’m buying a special varietal (like Oka), most of the cheese I buy in Ontario is made in Ontario.
KevinB, I think the bulk / industrial milk quotas were set quite a few years ago by Liberals in Ottawa, and are based largely on Quebec maintaining its over achieving slice of the pie. Here’s some info on that from McGill University, somewhat independent, not up to date but the percentages are still in use.
http://animsci.agrenv.mcgill.ca/courses/450/topics/1.html
Keep in mind that Ontario has a much larger population, while Quebec keeps its larger percentage of the market.
The saddest part about things like supply-mangement, subsidies and protectionism is the corrosive effect on dignity and independence.
You’ll have a hard time finding the independant old fellow Murray McLaughlan sang about on a modern Canadian dairy farm.
marc in cal. is correct, Ont. has a larger dairy herd than Quebec and also more laying hens. Dairy is subdivided into 2 categories: industrial and fluid. Industrial is directed to cheese, powder, and butter, plus some manufacturing items.Fluid goes to drinking milk, yogurts, sour creams, and cream. Prices per hundredweight and bacteria count along with fat content determine final individual farm price. Quebec has the sizeable majority of industrial milk and the attendant industrial plants, while Ont. has a sizeable majority of fluid milk and fluid plants.
opps should be Kevin, my apology.