The fact that Canada is essentially captured by its dairy and agricultural special interests doesn't just hurt overseas companies who want to trade there.
So where to start....barriers between provinces. It's utterly idiotic be it product, or skilled tradespersons. All it takes is real leadership....so we're doomed.
It's so comical for some people to constantly focus on one of the most successful parts of our agricultural policy to the exclusion of all the other real problems. The American dairy industry is pumping their cows with hormones to get yields up in the midst of a farmer bankruptcy crisis, Brexit Britain is flopping around like a... very floppy fish, while Canadian dairy farmers are still prosperous amid milk surpluses. We've decided to put a price floor on dairy and eggs and poultry so we have stable sources of protein and a prosperous farm sector. Why should we let our food policy be set by foreigners?
Contrast dairy with the rest of the ag sector. Beef farmers are getting lower prices from processors and retailers are paying higher prices because there are only three meatpacking plants owned by two multinational corporations supplying virtually the whole country. Grain farmers are getting lower prices because 70% of our grain elevators are owned by four (soon to be three) multinational corporations. Seeds and pesticides and farm equipment are highly concentrated and controlled, so farmers pay higher costs.
It's almost like there are vested interests who want to see a few multinational corporations control all the food. That's why they moan about supply management and never make a peep about the less transparent and less accountable cartels running our food system.
What is atrocious about "supply management" is not even so much the tariffs imposed on imports as much as the quota system on domestic production. It is illegal to sell milk outside of the quota system *precisely because* there are Canadians who would be willing and able to sell milk and cheese at lower prices than are quota-owners.
The policy by design both kills jobs *and* raises prices for consumers. The policy has two different kinds of negatively affected groups and only one positively affected group (existing quota owners).
Can’t maintain a price floor without some kind of production limits. Private cartels do it by shutting down productive capacity and causing shortages. Supply management maintains surplus production capacity. That’s a good thing when we’re talking about food. It’s disaster insurance.
In no sane world is **arresting people who produce and sell dairy without quota** paving the way for "surplus production capacity". When you persecute people for selling goods that others are willing to pay for, that creates conditions of artificial scarcity. And it's that artificial scarcity that allows quota owners to charge more for producing less - at the expense of the broader populace.
If you maintain the price floor, farmers just dump any surplus and remain in business. That’s latent capacity that is available when the next bird flu wipes out a chunk of the herd.
Creating a race to the bottom just causes farmers to go bankrupt or use extraordinary methods to reduce costs. We see that in the US. When there’s a crisis, shortages result.
You say this as if farmers (or anyone else) is entitled to a profit. They aren't, no one is. Compete with the world or find something else to do.
I know right now I can find Kerrygold butter for the same price as palm oil laden utility grade butter in Canada but the quality is eons different. Ireland has a similar climate to Vancouver Island, which should be as much a dairy industry hotspot as Whatcom County, WA.
Who are we kidding, dairying in Canada is about rent seeking first and foremost. Can't blame them, it's the Canadian dream.
Does the law require the police to arrest persons who produce and sell dairy without quota? Yes or no?
Does arresting people who are selling what others are willing to buy encourage artificial scarcity by decreasing the numbers of available producers? Yes or no?
We also penalize businesses that don’t pay the minimum wage. Social standards matter too.
There’s a category error in your static analysis. In a business like farming or transportation or power generation, with huge upfront costs, low marginal revenues, high volatility, and high risk of ruin, we need to regulate prices. Otherwise the volatility will destroy productive capacity, and we end up with shortages. We saw that all through the pandemic. Making milk is not like making widgets.
But a minimum wage does incentivize businesses to do without labour and invest in machines instead, or just go out of business. So it does actually impose a direct limit on the "production" of labour. If it costs too much for the value it produces, there will be less of it. I realize there is some disagreement among economists about the magnitude of the job-killing effect of raising the minimum wage. In a tight labour market or where unions are doing their mischief, the going rate for labour that you can't do without (like nursing care) may be higher than the minimum wage anyway.
The fact that we currently have a massive labour shortage in Canada so bad we have to import mass labour rather disproves your point.
Yes, minimum wages incentive the use of capital instead, but this does NOT put a limit on the production of labour, it simply redirects it.
If it did put a limit on, you'd see high unemployment, not a MASSIVE labour shortage. We see the exact opposite of what you predict our minimum wage laws will cause, so your theory of prediction is obviously false.
Next day edit: Caveat... I say this about the minimum wages *that we have*. I make no claim about no negative effects if we had a massively higher minimum wage. I suspect $100/hour minimum would have weird and negative effects.
You have a tiresome tendency to be doctrinaire in your pronouncements, Andrew.. “Obviously false” is an example. It is controversial whether minimal wage laws are bad or good for the economy, especially when the welfare state provides an alternative to work, and machines provide an alternative to workers. So I will leave to your own certainties, then.
Without automation, many industries in this country would simply end. What's more, the cost of labour is high and the number of new entrants into the labour market is falling (the only thing keeping numbers from plummeting even more precipitously is immigration).
The employee quality vs pay curve in Canada is too steep when it comes to full time salary and wage work. On the low end Canadian employees require too much compared to what value they deliver. On the high end, yes Canadians don't earn as much as Americans and Australians, but they aren't as productive either. The Protestant Work ethic coupled with American ambition and drive ensure they work their asses off. None of this "right to shut off" or anti-at-will work laws in the US. In Australia they actually want resource development and don't have the multicultural mixed economic messaging scaring off investment like in Canada.
There's no single buyer for labour. Every single business is a buyer for labour.
And yet we have a price floor by labour.
All we had to do was make it illegal to employee someone (buy labour) for less than minimum wage. And it works because people avoid being in jail and losing their business.
There's no reason to think owners of dairy farms want to be in jail and lose their business, so they'd comply at the same rate that other businesses do.
Interesting question! I imagine it has something to do with blunting the power of the dairy processors and ensuring there are enough individual farmers around. Otherwise, the dairy processors would demand kickbacks from farmers to accept the milk, which would lead to farm consolidation. The quota ensures that no individual farm gets to dominate the market.
Supply management is a perfect example of the public choice theory. Ever Canadian who consumes milk, eggs or poultry pays more so those farmers can get rich. A poor mother who wants to buy her children ice cream subsidizes the lifestyle of a diary farmer. Open up the markets so we can have cheaper milk, chicken and eggs. We would also get more farmers producing those products.
If you wanted to become a diary farmer, you would pay more for your quota than your cows. How does that make sense?
A subsidy is better than a protection racket every day of the week. Subsidies can be tweeked, a protection racket requires innovation to break. Uber broke the sketchy taxi cartels, perhaps lab grown milk and oat milk will break the dairy cartels?
You can say that about any policy that sets a price floor. Does anyone moan about how minimum wage laws subsidize the lifestyle of a burger-flipper at the expense of a poor mother who wants to buy her children burgers? It's silly. Insecurity in the food supply has a cost too.
If only our political system were actually democratic enough for narrow interest groups to not boost their incomes via economic schemes that impose artificial legally-imposed costs upon the broader populace...
The narrow interest groups are the global food corporations that see the last bastion of agricultural output that isn't controlled by them. A democratically sanctioned price system that keeps individual farmers out of poverty while maintaining a stable and plentiful food supply? Can't have that.
All a minimum wage does is disqualify low qualified employees from the job market.
You can tell that most Canadians and almost all decision makers have never run a business. That's a huge problem in Canada by the way, not enough learned business sense in the greater population
Hm... invest millions of dollars in land, equipment, and livestock only to make minimum wage? Might as well quit producing food and work at a doughnut shop. Doesn't sound like a very useful policy.
That's the free market. No one is entitled to a profitable business.
I invested millions in my business, I don't expect to be protected from younger, smarter, harder working and more capitalized people.
I grew up working class with my family invited to Canada to fill a critical skill set, moving here from a broken country. I'm not a settler, I'm a businessman. I have zero sympathy for businessmen who aren't good enough no matter their industry. Seniority is toxic as well.
Dairy farming is not a free market. We made political choices in the 30’s and the 60’s to regulate the food supply to ensure stability and profitability for producers. Other countries decided to subsidize dairy farmer incomes while we decided to regulate supply. Our system is largely working better. US and UK farmers are constantly in crisis with volatile prices and government bailouts while our system is stable.
Successful for whom? Producers with seniority or those who bought into the protection scheme? Agreed. Successful for consumers, importers or new industry entrants? No.
Why should we let our food policy be set by foreigners? Because they deliver a superior product at a better price. No palm oil required. Canadian dairy can't be trusted to serve Canadians.
Remember, no one rips off a Canadian like a Canadian.
Well, we have stable and prosperous milk producers with none of the mass bankruptcies and despair that the US sees, a plentiful domestic milk supply with stable prices, all without taxpayer subsidies. Sounds pretty good to me.
Stable and some of the highest prices in the world. Sucks for single mothers raising young kids, but great for rural Quebec car dealers.
Great rule of thumb in life, if something makes the lives of poor kids worse, it sucks for all of society. Ultra expensive dairy qualifies, and stability isn't worth it.
As for bankruptcies, that's the free market. No one is so special as to be entitled to a profit. Creative destruction, out with the slow, old and inferior, in with the new. Foreign is better than Canadian at this point.
You can buy hormone laden dairy in the US. you can also buy USDA organic dairy.
There's no reason we couldn't allow USDA milk and ban any milk or cheese produced with rBST just like we'd ban any milk produced with arsenic and bubonic plague.
Safety concerns are always a distraction to any conversation. Canada could open its dairy industry to foreign suppliers while still enforcing its own quality standards. The two are completely unrelated
The point is that the US farmers need to use extraordinary measures to boost yields, while Canadian farmers do not. And there’s no way to enforce foreign farming practices. Isn’t it wonderful to have an industry where there isn’t an urge to crapify everything?
The dairy industry is always a distraction to any food monopoly conversation. Nobody is writing think pieces about the two corporations that control 95% of the beef market.
The U.S. dairy industry would argue, during the next renegotiation of the USMC Free Trade Agreement that a Canadian ban on rBST (whatever that is) amounts to a non-tariff barrier against American dairy products. Banning what they consider to be a perfectly safe agent that reduces cost of producing milk is essentially a ban on American milk just to benefit Canadian dairy interests. (Americans drink it. Why can't we?) We could hold out for such a ban during the trade talks but the Americans would demand a reciprocal concession somewhere else. They wouldn't just give it to us as a freebie. One tack I would take, if I was the U.S. trade negotiator, would be to argue that tax-funded Canadian medicare is a wage subsidy since it reduces our nominal labour cost on goods traded across the border and makes them cheaper. American labour costs are inflated by the cost of workplace insurance paid by the employer. Our health care costs are hidden in the taxes paid mostly by high-income earners who are a small minority of the labour force, and earn much of their income not as wages but as dividends and capital gains, which don't show up in embedded labour costs. If the state subsidizes wages or prices it is not engaging in free trade and should submit to tariffs to compensate the importer. Or stop the subsidy.
If we gave ground on the health-insurance "subsidy" and accepted a countervailing tariff on our manufactured exports this would hurt Ontario. Would Ontario take it in the neck to protect the (mostly) Québec dairy industry?
The USA says the milk is safe. Canada can choose to decide otherwise. Just as the US and Canada decide differently about the safety of Kinder Surprise eggs.
The rBST issue doesn't affect the quota system because we can ban rBST milk and keep quota AND we can allow rBST milk and keep quota. The two issues are not connected.
The dairy industry thrives because of money extorted from the Canadian public, is that not obvious to you? Yet somehow you believe that a cartel of one is OK compared to prairie grain handlers? BTW Canada is now the world's third largest exporter of grain and prairie farmers managed to achieve that without the "help" of some murky market regulation body. Also, wheat in particular is a global commodity and priced by the free market. The price is lower than the peak in 2022 it's higher than at any point from 2014 to 2021 and much higher than virtually every year in the last quarter of the 20th century.
Is the hormone issue in dairy cows a real issue or is it just a tool to justify protectionism? The US has been using them for 3 decades without issues. Also lots of other ag products are produced using antibiotics, etc..
It's not a real issue because if we wanted to we could allow US dairy that was NOT produced with rBST while banning the import of milk produced with rBST.
No, we couldn't ban US milk produced with rBST as there would not be any science-based sanitary measure to support it, contravening our international trade obligations.
To be frank, there is a reason to ban it in Canada if Canada says there is a reason, because there's no senior "supranational science authority" that decides these things.
These determinations are made by national authorities and neither the US nor Canadian authorities have jurisdiction over the other. Canada tell the US what it "must" allow to import and the US can't tell Canada.
Note the fact that the Europeans insist that chlorinated chicken has significant enough health risks to ban the import of such chicken. The Americans insist that's poppycock and there are zero health risks whatsoever. Scientifically, only one of them can be right. But there's no supranational boss that decides who is right. It's left to them to sort it out and the way it has been sorted out is that the US has chlorinated chicken on its shelves and the Europeans do not.
And in fairness to Canada, the US and Europe, there's also the question of the precautionary principle and the *degree* of risk they're willing to tolerate. There isn't a right answer on those questions.
I'll give you another example: should a load a cedar boards be labelled as a cancer risk to those handling it? The state of California says yes. Canada does not. What's the scientific answer? It doesn't matter because in California, California decides and vice versa in Canada.
It is a real issue because in a free-trade system, Canada can't arbitrarily ban the import of milk produced by cows given a hormone the American dairy producers believe is safe because Americans drink that cheaper milk without complaint. The Americans would regard that as an excuse for protectionism just as Ross Huntley says. (Consumers can buy "organic" milk if they want to pay more for it.)
There's no law of nature that says that you can't have free trade unless you subordinate your health and safety regulation to the foreign country's system. Imports to Canada MUST meet Canadian health and safety rules regardless of NAFTA.
Obvious example: Kinder Surprise. It's banned in the US by FDA regulation. And yet Canadians happily eat Kinder surprise without complaint. No one chokes to death on a Kinder egg and no one imagines that the FDA regulations are negated because Canada says Kinder Surprise is fine.
I didn’t know what Kinder Eggs are. I can see why the FDA would want to ban candy that had been adulterated with small fragments of plastic non-food ingredients, especially when the candy is a commercialization of some obscure European (“furriner”) family custom where they don’t even speak American! Choking has occurred. So has salmonella (as it has in other chocolate as well.). I rather like the FDA’s instincts on this one.
But this is not a big deal for Canada. We don’t produce them and there’s is no constituency here that would lobby to make Kinder Eggs a top agenda item for trade negotiations. “Allow our candy importers to re-export Kinder Eggs to you or we’ll hold our breath until we turn blue.” “Knock yourself out.” If differential regulations cover a traded commodity really important to both sides and neither can compromise because the constituency affected considers it to be a hill to die on — in Canada this would be dairy and other supply-managed farm products — it could be a deal breaker. One or both parties would walk away, as Britain seems to have done. Perhaps they figured out that Canada was never going to say yes to British cheese. Just because.
Everything is negotiable, even cherished health and safety regulations (and DEI mandates and climate-change policies in the factory where the goods are produced, two other hobby horses Canada likes to promote.) If the other side sees our H&S and social-justice regs as restraining trade and acting as a non-tariff barrier to its goods, it will challenge us to harmonize our regs with its regs so their products can be sold here, if we want a deal. Do we need a free-trade deal more than the Americans do? If we do, we are in the weaker negotiating position and will have to make more concessions to get one. If we want our own social-justice regs more than we want a deal, that’s our sovereign choice. But the choice has consequences. The other side may deny us access to its markets, which it can do if it doesn’t agree not to.
If Canada does write a new health/safety reg on a previously harmonized product that prevents it being imported, the U.S. can either let it slide or sue us through the dispute-resolution mechanism. What their government would do would depend on how powerful and vigorous the lobbying effort was by the wounded industry seeking redress. For its part, the Canadian Government would carefully consider the likely American reaction to any proposed new reg that had the effect of shutting out American exporters. These decisions don’t take place in a vacuum.
Saying that you prefer the FDA decision doesn’t change the fact that the Americans and Canadians BOTH establish health and safety separately for themselves.
Yet I pay only slightly less for beef and grains in the US than I do in Canada, and somehow Candian beef and grains producers are able to compete globally.
The real issue the dairy lobby's concentrated in Quebec. Maybe Poilievre can prove that a strong majority government is possible with minimal Quebec representation and finally slay the sacred cow.
Deconstructing the telecom, media, commercial air service and financial services oligopolies will be much more challening as they are concentrated in vote rich Ontario.
When a handful of global corporations are controlling the global grain and beef market, it's not really global competition. We're just along for the ride. Farmers and consumers have to accept whatever prices and terms JBS, Cargilll, and Bunge decide.
We either have democratically elected governments structure our markets, or we have powerful corporations structure our markets.
In many areas, there's a widening gap between perception and reality in Canada. How many think we have the best health care system, despite all the contrary facts?
Speaking of the gap between perception and reality, a four-litre bag of milk costs between $5 and $6 in Southern Ontario. That’s $1.50/ litre tops, not $4.20. Surprise surprise, that makes milk cheaper in Canada than in the U.K., according to the author’s figures. What else has he got wrong?
I think anyone whose milk consumption is high enough to worry about the price will be buying it by the (metric) gallon. A one-litre carton is just not a relevant comparison. Sure, if you bought 4 of those little 250 mL single-serving cartons in a convenience store, that litre would cost you a lot more than $1.50. Milk is a good value compared to money-wasters like tattoos, cigarettes, and bottled water, even if they’re cheaper in the States.
It's worth checking the carton to see if it's really a later. I have noticed some "litres" than kicked in around 940 pls. I don't drink milk anymore so I don't watch that.
You are comparing different quantity prices. In Walmart in BC a 2 L carton costs $4.79 depending on city whereas, a 4 L carton costs $5.59. I guess you could say that you can get 2Ls of milk for 80 cents. Across the line I can get 2 Gals for $5 USD.
Yes, we know dairy is cheaper in the U.S. than in Canada. That’s why many Canadians want to let them export to us. My point in my original comment was that I think the author of the piece erred factually in saying milk is cheaper *in the UK* than in Canada. Not talking about the U.S. Milk doesn’t cost $4.40 per litre in any non-remote part of Canada unless you were buying that litre in tiny cartons.
This is important because the author claimed that the UK broke off trade discussions with us because we wanted to protect milk prices of $4.40 a litre, which is just not true, because milk doesn’t cost that much. Perhaps he will explain this better.
Many things are cheaper in the U.S. because of economies of scale, easier climate, shorter average distances between economic actors because of higher population density, and the generally less “sticky” U.S. economy and the lower tax and regulatory burden (no French on packages for example). If we imported U.S. milk, or enticed American grocery chains to operate here, they would face the same challenges here that keep Canadian prices high.
(Edited to correct my mistake on Greg's quote for the price here.)
I don’t disagree with the error you point out as that is about the price for a 2L carton here in Canada; however, you dodge the issue of increased consumer expenses to support one aspect of the food supply chain. Why dairy and not beef or pork producers?
I'm not dodging any issue. I just don't want to engage with it because it's beside the point, which was Greg Quinn's error on the milk price, on which he hangs his argument about why Britain walked away from free(r) trade talks. I really do hope he addresses this because if milk sells for that much *more* in Britain, and the cost of production is in proportion, it's unlikely that Canadians
will want to buy imported British cheese on price alone.
More generally, if he's wrong from carelessness on that, what does that do to the rest of his diatribe against Canada? That was an easily detectable error because all of us know what milk costs. What about his other facts that you would have to have read up on, or be in the business, to be able to question intelligently?
The answer to your question, why is dairy special?, is, of course, because it's a big deal in Québec. We all know that.
I've been aware of the dairy cartel for some time now. Their lobby seems very powerful. Anytime someone questions whether it's good for anyone other than the dairy industry, they circle the wagons and yell foul. Maybe I'm just spoiled, but I do question whether they could lighten up a bit so we could pay a little less for cheese and yogurt. Seems a lot of people won't even buy it anymore because of the price, and that can't be good for Big Dairy either.
Mr. Quinn seems to be ignoring the fact that the UK subsidizes their dairy industry. Before BREXIT, British dairy farmers obtain over £56 million in EU direct payments which make up almost 40% of their annual profits. Lowland and upland livestock farmers receive about £38 million in subsidies which make up over 90% of their annual profits! For the most part, the UK government has continued these subsidies.
The Canadian Government does not subsidize the Dairy Industry but through the farmer funded marketing boards, they guarantee a fair price to the farmer while using tariffs to protect the farmer's from cheap imports.
So in the UK, citizen's taxes are used to lower the cost of dairy products for the consumer and for export. In Canada, we pay higher prices for dairy products, but our tax dollars are not being used to subsidize it.
It is the same story in the USA - the government is subsidizing farmers and then complaining the their cheaper products are being assessed high tariffs to be imported into Canada.
Keep in mind, there is no ban against British cheese. There is just a very high tariff, which makes it rather unaffordable when considering the landed cost.
Subsidies would actually be less harmful to the public well-being than the raised food costs caused by "supply management".
What is atrocious about "supply management" is not even so much the tariffs imposed on imports as much as the quota system on domestic production. It is illegal to sell milk outside of the quota system *precisely because* there are Canadians who would be willing and able to sell milk and cheese at lower prices than are quota-owners.
The policy by design both kills jobs *and* raises prices for consumers. The policy has two different kinds of negatively affected groups and only one positively affected group (existing quota owners).
I don't really see how that will work. Yes, I have read stories about a few dairy farmers complaining about dumping milk. So they want to benefit from the high milk prices that the marketing board provides them with, and then also benefit by circumventing the system and selling his overage. The fact is, that managing milk production is not straight forward. Producers need to manage both the number of cows milking and the stage of lactation. The vast majority of producers do this effectively. If a farmer has the ability for overproduction, they always have the option to buy more quota.
Canada is also not the only country that dumps milk. Plenty do, including in the US where it is very common.
Although quota is a Canadian thing, most countries have some limits on what they can ship. In the US, if you ship over your quota, you are penalized.
The problem I see here is everyone is 'navel gazing' and never investigates how other countries deal with their protectionism vs. the benefits of exports.
Every system has its strengths and weaknesses. Anything I have read in the National Post (for instance) of late, is hyper-politicized with facts all cherry-picked. The US spends $10 Billion a year on agricultural subsidies. They could easily overwhelm Canadian producers if there were not some instruments in place to protect them.
We are talking about *legal restraints* on what is allowed to be produced, and we are talking about Canadians who are *legally barred* from the dairy industry. We are discussing laws and economics here, not business practices. The law as economically designed is intended to pass costs onto the broader populace to the benefit of a narrow interest group.
"In the US, if you ship over your quota, you are penalized."
What you are claiming is difficult to reconcile with the fact that American dairy is produced in excess to the point of becoming a significant export product. Canadian dairy is not.
"They could easily overwhelm Canadian producers if there were not some instruments in place to protect them."
Then why **arrest** Canadians who produce and sell dairy without quota?
Also in free trade negotiations that is something that can be negotiated away. If we were to open our markets then subsidized products could be barred.
Trade. When Mulroney brought in the ‘Free Trade Agreement’ he only looked South to the US and North to Canada. Too time consuming,I guess to consider East to West as well. Since the universe revolves around ON and Quebec,and the skeaky wheel gets the grease. I find it embarrassing that we have one(1) railroad across this country. One (1) Trans Canada single lane highway. Which I’m sure no Prime Minister has ever driven across. Ok,Ontario has the only single lane,most of the rest is double. I buy a tin of chew,Copenhagen in ON Rez store for $11. Alberta I’m charged $36. Montana it’s $5. No French writing,and telling me I’m going to die. Clay Arbuckle,Lac Ste Anne County,AB. PS And they sell beer at the Sev.
There are two railways across the country, although CPKCS no longer operates east of Montréal. Both CN and CPKCS are in fact pivoting their Atlantic Ocean commerce to the Gulf of Mexico away from Halifax and Montréal, making them blockade-proof, in the East anyway, where the trouble-makers mostly are.
The main line of the Trans-Canada Highway (#17) is just not very important to commerce in Ontario, not enough to justify making it four lanes. Our commerce moves in other directions, all centred on Toronto, of course. Truck traffic from Manitoba to the Maritimes would be better to use divided freeways in the U.S. states south of Lake Superior and avoid the Ontario portion of the TCH entirely.
Yes to French or British cheese, cheaper food prices, and the inter-provincial trade barriers are ludicrous. At the same time, I want no part of growth-hormone laden US beef or milk, and other spooky animal husbandry practices. When it comes to food specifically, I'd like to see us cultivate both quality and lower price point.
Part of the fun in activist politics is using the law to prevent other people from buying things one thinks they shouldn’t be allowed to buy. I can understand why producer cartels want protective tariffs and regulations that keep out foreign competition. I don’t understand the argument coming from consumers. American milk, so labeled, should be sold alongside Canadian milk. If customers buy enough Canadian milk at the higher price to allow the Canadian dairy farmers to make a profit, good for them. But I bet they won’t.
Will we suffer without Canadian dairy farms? Probably. Which is why it’s complicated.
And what has to give, if you want better quality and cheaper prices? (Who doesn’t?!). How do you “cultivate” that? You’re talking economies of scale (which Canada will achieve only by allowing immigration 10 times what it is now) or lower income for farmers and the other workers in the agricultural sector.
Might be time to re-evaluate scare stories about hormones in American food. After Hallowe’en. Maybe these scare stories are propagated just to make us accept high protected Canadian prices so the farmers stay on the land.
I would actually love to buy more Canadian-made/produced. It takes effort, though, and it's often not even possible. Just the other day, I went to buy garlic. They had garlic from China, Russia, and the US. Why the heck can't Canada grow and sell garlic? And it's like this with everything. We produce very little here, and for the most part we as a country are perfectly fine with that. Dairy is our sacred cow, though 🐄 😉
American dairy conglomerates don’t want to truck cold liquid milk from Wisconsin to Flin Flon and Timmins, or even to Windsor and London. What they want access to is the market for milk solids for manufacturing milk products like cheese, yoghurt, and dozens of other things. If they undercut our dairy farmers for those lucrative products that are cheaper to transport long distances and put them out of business, who will supply fluid milk to Canadian grocery stores even in large border cities like Toronto? Not Wisconsin.
I don’t know if this argument holds water but it’s worth examining if the Canadian dairy market is opened to cross-border competition.
You may be willing to pay higher prices for Canadian products, I am not. Unfortunately, I do not have that choice because the dairy cartel has every party's politicians cowed (double meaning intended) into maintaining their businesses at the expense of Canadian consumers.
So where to start....barriers between provinces. It's utterly idiotic be it product, or skilled tradespersons. All it takes is real leadership....so we're doomed.
It's so comical for some people to constantly focus on one of the most successful parts of our agricultural policy to the exclusion of all the other real problems. The American dairy industry is pumping their cows with hormones to get yields up in the midst of a farmer bankruptcy crisis, Brexit Britain is flopping around like a... very floppy fish, while Canadian dairy farmers are still prosperous amid milk surpluses. We've decided to put a price floor on dairy and eggs and poultry so we have stable sources of protein and a prosperous farm sector. Why should we let our food policy be set by foreigners?
Contrast dairy with the rest of the ag sector. Beef farmers are getting lower prices from processors and retailers are paying higher prices because there are only three meatpacking plants owned by two multinational corporations supplying virtually the whole country. Grain farmers are getting lower prices because 70% of our grain elevators are owned by four (soon to be three) multinational corporations. Seeds and pesticides and farm equipment are highly concentrated and controlled, so farmers pay higher costs.
It's almost like there are vested interests who want to see a few multinational corporations control all the food. That's why they moan about supply management and never make a peep about the less transparent and less accountable cartels running our food system.
What is atrocious about "supply management" is not even so much the tariffs imposed on imports as much as the quota system on domestic production. It is illegal to sell milk outside of the quota system *precisely because* there are Canadians who would be willing and able to sell milk and cheese at lower prices than are quota-owners.
The policy by design both kills jobs *and* raises prices for consumers. The policy has two different kinds of negatively affected groups and only one positively affected group (existing quota owners).
It's hilarious how people will say with a straight face that allowing more Canadians to supply dairy will harm the national supply of dairy.
Can’t maintain a price floor without some kind of production limits. Private cartels do it by shutting down productive capacity and causing shortages. Supply management maintains surplus production capacity. That’s a good thing when we’re talking about food. It’s disaster insurance.
In no sane world is **arresting people who produce and sell dairy without quota** paving the way for "surplus production capacity". When you persecute people for selling goods that others are willing to pay for, that creates conditions of artificial scarcity. And it's that artificial scarcity that allows quota owners to charge more for producing less - at the expense of the broader populace.
If you maintain the price floor, farmers just dump any surplus and remain in business. That’s latent capacity that is available when the next bird flu wipes out a chunk of the herd.
Creating a race to the bottom just causes farmers to go bankrupt or use extraordinary methods to reduce costs. We see that in the US. When there’s a crisis, shortages result.
You say this as if farmers (or anyone else) is entitled to a profit. They aren't, no one is. Compete with the world or find something else to do.
I know right now I can find Kerrygold butter for the same price as palm oil laden utility grade butter in Canada but the quality is eons different. Ireland has a similar climate to Vancouver Island, which should be as much a dairy industry hotspot as Whatcom County, WA.
Who are we kidding, dairying in Canada is about rent seeking first and foremost. Can't blame them, it's the Canadian dream.
Does the law require the police to arrest persons who produce and sell dairy without quota? Yes or no?
Does arresting people who are selling what others are willing to buy encourage artificial scarcity by decreasing the numbers of available producers? Yes or no?
We also penalize businesses that don’t pay the minimum wage. Social standards matter too.
There’s a category error in your static analysis. In a business like farming or transportation or power generation, with huge upfront costs, low marginal revenues, high volatility, and high risk of ruin, we need to regulate prices. Otherwise the volatility will destroy productive capacity, and we end up with shortages. We saw that all through the pandemic. Making milk is not like making widgets.
> Can’t maintain a price floor without some kind of production limits.
The existence of a minimum wage proves that wrong.
You can have a minimum price without production limits because we DO for the minimum wage price floor.
Other jurisdictions do it with alcohol. (Minimum price for alcohol without a "supply management" system for alcohol.)
But a minimum wage does incentivize businesses to do without labour and invest in machines instead, or just go out of business. So it does actually impose a direct limit on the "production" of labour. If it costs too much for the value it produces, there will be less of it. I realize there is some disagreement among economists about the magnitude of the job-killing effect of raising the minimum wage. In a tight labour market or where unions are doing their mischief, the going rate for labour that you can't do without (like nursing care) may be higher than the minimum wage anyway.
The fact that we currently have a massive labour shortage in Canada so bad we have to import mass labour rather disproves your point.
Yes, minimum wages incentive the use of capital instead, but this does NOT put a limit on the production of labour, it simply redirects it.
If it did put a limit on, you'd see high unemployment, not a MASSIVE labour shortage. We see the exact opposite of what you predict our minimum wage laws will cause, so your theory of prediction is obviously false.
Next day edit: Caveat... I say this about the minimum wages *that we have*. I make no claim about no negative effects if we had a massively higher minimum wage. I suspect $100/hour minimum would have weird and negative effects.
You have a tiresome tendency to be doctrinaire in your pronouncements, Andrew.. “Obviously false” is an example. It is controversial whether minimal wage laws are bad or good for the economy, especially when the welfare state provides an alternative to work, and machines provide an alternative to workers. So I will leave to your own certainties, then.
Without automation, many industries in this country would simply end. What's more, the cost of labour is high and the number of new entrants into the labour market is falling (the only thing keeping numbers from plummeting even more precipitously is immigration).
The employee quality vs pay curve in Canada is too steep when it comes to full time salary and wage work. On the low end Canadian employees require too much compared to what value they deliver. On the high end, yes Canadians don't earn as much as Americans and Australians, but they aren't as productive either. The Protestant Work ethic coupled with American ambition and drive ensure they work their asses off. None of this "right to shut off" or anti-at-will work laws in the US. In Australia they actually want resource development and don't have the multicultural mixed economic messaging scaring off investment like in Canada.
How would that system look for milk? There would have to be a single buyer like the Wheat Board or the LCBO.
There's no single buyer for labour. Every single business is a buyer for labour.
And yet we have a price floor by labour.
All we had to do was make it illegal to employee someone (buy labour) for less than minimum wage. And it works because people avoid being in jail and losing their business.
There's no reason to think owners of dairy farms want to be in jail and lose their business, so they'd comply at the same rate that other businesses do.
Interesting question! I imagine it has something to do with blunting the power of the dairy processors and ensuring there are enough individual farmers around. Otherwise, the dairy processors would demand kickbacks from farmers to accept the milk, which would lead to farm consolidation. The quota ensures that no individual farm gets to dominate the market.
That’s exactly communist central planning for you.
Supply management is a perfect example of the public choice theory. Ever Canadian who consumes milk, eggs or poultry pays more so those farmers can get rich. A poor mother who wants to buy her children ice cream subsidizes the lifestyle of a diary farmer. Open up the markets so we can have cheaper milk, chicken and eggs. We would also get more farmers producing those products.
If you wanted to become a diary farmer, you would pay more for your quota than your cows. How does that make sense?
In the USA, the farmers get rich through tax funded agricultures subsidies of $10 billion a year. There is no free trade in agriculture.
A subsidy is better than a protection racket every day of the week. Subsidies can be tweeked, a protection racket requires innovation to break. Uber broke the sketchy taxi cartels, perhaps lab grown milk and oat milk will break the dairy cartels?
You can say that about any policy that sets a price floor. Does anyone moan about how minimum wage laws subsidize the lifestyle of a burger-flipper at the expense of a poor mother who wants to buy her children burgers? It's silly. Insecurity in the food supply has a cost too.
You are correct that the minimum wage and the dairy monopoly are based upon similar underlying logics, which is why we see economists critical of the minimum wage as well: https://worthwhile.typepad.com/worthwhile_canadian_initi/2011/02/reconciling-the-minimum-wage-literature.html
That’s why we have a democracy instead of just doing whatever the economists like.
If only our political system were actually democratic enough for narrow interest groups to not boost their incomes via economic schemes that impose artificial legally-imposed costs upon the broader populace...
The narrow interest groups are the global food corporations that see the last bastion of agricultural output that isn't controlled by them. A democratically sanctioned price system that keeps individual farmers out of poverty while maintaining a stable and plentiful food supply? Can't have that.
All a minimum wage does is disqualify low qualified employees from the job market.
You can tell that most Canadians and almost all decision makers have never run a business. That's a huge problem in Canada by the way, not enough learned business sense in the greater population
I agree that dairy and poultry producers should make at least minimum wage. Beyond that, the issues are unrelated.
Hm... invest millions of dollars in land, equipment, and livestock only to make minimum wage? Might as well quit producing food and work at a doughnut shop. Doesn't sound like a very useful policy.
That's the free market. No one is entitled to a profitable business.
I invested millions in my business, I don't expect to be protected from younger, smarter, harder working and more capitalized people.
I grew up working class with my family invited to Canada to fill a critical skill set, moving here from a broken country. I'm not a settler, I'm a businessman. I have zero sympathy for businessmen who aren't good enough no matter their industry. Seniority is toxic as well.
Dairy farming is not a free market. We made political choices in the 30’s and the 60’s to regulate the food supply to ensure stability and profitability for producers. Other countries decided to subsidize dairy farmer incomes while we decided to regulate supply. Our system is largely working better. US and UK farmers are constantly in crisis with volatile prices and government bailouts while our system is stable.
What is your line of business, Milo?
Successful for whom? Producers with seniority or those who bought into the protection scheme? Agreed. Successful for consumers, importers or new industry entrants? No.
Why should we let our food policy be set by foreigners? Because they deliver a superior product at a better price. No palm oil required. Canadian dairy can't be trusted to serve Canadians.
Remember, no one rips off a Canadian like a Canadian.
Well, we have stable and prosperous milk producers with none of the mass bankruptcies and despair that the US sees, a plentiful domestic milk supply with stable prices, all without taxpayer subsidies. Sounds pretty good to me.
Stable and some of the highest prices in the world. Sucks for single mothers raising young kids, but great for rural Quebec car dealers.
Great rule of thumb in life, if something makes the lives of poor kids worse, it sucks for all of society. Ultra expensive dairy qualifies, and stability isn't worth it.
As for bankruptcies, that's the free market. No one is so special as to be entitled to a profit. Creative destruction, out with the slow, old and inferior, in with the new. Foreign is better than Canadian at this point.
You can buy hormone laden dairy in the US. you can also buy USDA organic dairy.
There's no reason we couldn't allow USDA milk and ban any milk or cheese produced with rBST just like we'd ban any milk produced with arsenic and bubonic plague.
Safety concerns are always a distraction to any conversation. Canada could open its dairy industry to foreign suppliers while still enforcing its own quality standards. The two are completely unrelated
> Safety concerns are always a distraction to any conversation.
Uh yeah. No.
The point is that the US farmers need to use extraordinary measures to boost yields, while Canadian farmers do not. And there’s no way to enforce foreign farming practices. Isn’t it wonderful to have an industry where there isn’t an urge to crapify everything?
The dairy industry is always a distraction to any food monopoly conversation. Nobody is writing think pieces about the two corporations that control 95% of the beef market.
Canada does not ban the import of US milk produced with rBST. The milk is safe.
Canada banned rBST because of health concerns for the milking cows.
The U.S. dairy industry would argue, during the next renegotiation of the USMC Free Trade Agreement that a Canadian ban on rBST (whatever that is) amounts to a non-tariff barrier against American dairy products. Banning what they consider to be a perfectly safe agent that reduces cost of producing milk is essentially a ban on American milk just to benefit Canadian dairy interests. (Americans drink it. Why can't we?) We could hold out for such a ban during the trade talks but the Americans would demand a reciprocal concession somewhere else. They wouldn't just give it to us as a freebie. One tack I would take, if I was the U.S. trade negotiator, would be to argue that tax-funded Canadian medicare is a wage subsidy since it reduces our nominal labour cost on goods traded across the border and makes them cheaper. American labour costs are inflated by the cost of workplace insurance paid by the employer. Our health care costs are hidden in the taxes paid mostly by high-income earners who are a small minority of the labour force, and earn much of their income not as wages but as dividends and capital gains, which don't show up in embedded labour costs. If the state subsidizes wages or prices it is not engaging in free trade and should submit to tariffs to compensate the importer. Or stop the subsidy.
If we gave ground on the health-insurance "subsidy" and accepted a countervailing tariff on our manufactured exports this would hurt Ontario. Would Ontario take it in the neck to protect the (mostly) Québec dairy industry?
Canada allows the importation of milk produced with rBST from the US. The milk is safe.
Canada banned the use of rBST on cows because of concerns with the health of dairy cows.
The USA says the milk is safe. Canada can choose to decide otherwise. Just as the US and Canada decide differently about the safety of Kinder Surprise eggs.
The rBST issue doesn't affect the quota system because we can ban rBST milk and keep quota AND we can allow rBST milk and keep quota. The two issues are not connected.
The dairy industry thrives because of money extorted from the Canadian public, is that not obvious to you? Yet somehow you believe that a cartel of one is OK compared to prairie grain handlers? BTW Canada is now the world's third largest exporter of grain and prairie farmers managed to achieve that without the "help" of some murky market regulation body. Also, wheat in particular is a global commodity and priced by the free market. The price is lower than the peak in 2022 it's higher than at any point from 2014 to 2021 and much higher than virtually every year in the last quarter of the 20th century.
Is the hormone issue in dairy cows a real issue or is it just a tool to justify protectionism? The US has been using them for 3 decades without issues. Also lots of other ag products are produced using antibiotics, etc..
It's not a real issue because if we wanted to we could allow US dairy that was NOT produced with rBST while banning the import of milk produced with rBST.
No, we couldn't ban US milk produced with rBST as there would not be any science-based sanitary measure to support it, contravening our international trade obligations.
To be frank, there is a reason to ban it in Canada if Canada says there is a reason, because there's no senior "supranational science authority" that decides these things.
These determinations are made by national authorities and neither the US nor Canadian authorities have jurisdiction over the other. Canada tell the US what it "must" allow to import and the US can't tell Canada.
Note the fact that the Europeans insist that chlorinated chicken has significant enough health risks to ban the import of such chicken. The Americans insist that's poppycock and there are zero health risks whatsoever. Scientifically, only one of them can be right. But there's no supranational boss that decides who is right. It's left to them to sort it out and the way it has been sorted out is that the US has chlorinated chicken on its shelves and the Europeans do not.
And in fairness to Canada, the US and Europe, there's also the question of the precautionary principle and the *degree* of risk they're willing to tolerate. There isn't a right answer on those questions.
I'll give you another example: should a load a cedar boards be labelled as a cancer risk to those handling it? The state of California says yes. Canada does not. What's the scientific answer? It doesn't matter because in California, California decides and vice versa in Canada.
Canada allows imports of milk produced in the US with rBST.
That's great. Then there really is no problem and it really proves the point that rules to ensure a continuous supply are separate from health issues.
It is a real issue because in a free-trade system, Canada can't arbitrarily ban the import of milk produced by cows given a hormone the American dairy producers believe is safe because Americans drink that cheaper milk without complaint. The Americans would regard that as an excuse for protectionism just as Ross Huntley says. (Consumers can buy "organic" milk if they want to pay more for it.)
Yes we can.
There's no law of nature that says that you can't have free trade unless you subordinate your health and safety regulation to the foreign country's system. Imports to Canada MUST meet Canadian health and safety rules regardless of NAFTA.
Obvious example: Kinder Surprise. It's banned in the US by FDA regulation. And yet Canadians happily eat Kinder surprise without complaint. No one chokes to death on a Kinder egg and no one imagines that the FDA regulations are negated because Canada says Kinder Surprise is fine.
It's a choice we can make.
I didn’t know what Kinder Eggs are. I can see why the FDA would want to ban candy that had been adulterated with small fragments of plastic non-food ingredients, especially when the candy is a commercialization of some obscure European (“furriner”) family custom where they don’t even speak American! Choking has occurred. So has salmonella (as it has in other chocolate as well.). I rather like the FDA’s instincts on this one.
But this is not a big deal for Canada. We don’t produce them and there’s is no constituency here that would lobby to make Kinder Eggs a top agenda item for trade negotiations. “Allow our candy importers to re-export Kinder Eggs to you or we’ll hold our breath until we turn blue.” “Knock yourself out.” If differential regulations cover a traded commodity really important to both sides and neither can compromise because the constituency affected considers it to be a hill to die on — in Canada this would be dairy and other supply-managed farm products — it could be a deal breaker. One or both parties would walk away, as Britain seems to have done. Perhaps they figured out that Canada was never going to say yes to British cheese. Just because.
Everything is negotiable, even cherished health and safety regulations (and DEI mandates and climate-change policies in the factory where the goods are produced, two other hobby horses Canada likes to promote.) If the other side sees our H&S and social-justice regs as restraining trade and acting as a non-tariff barrier to its goods, it will challenge us to harmonize our regs with its regs so their products can be sold here, if we want a deal. Do we need a free-trade deal more than the Americans do? If we do, we are in the weaker negotiating position and will have to make more concessions to get one. If we want our own social-justice regs more than we want a deal, that’s our sovereign choice. But the choice has consequences. The other side may deny us access to its markets, which it can do if it doesn’t agree not to.
If Canada does write a new health/safety reg on a previously harmonized product that prevents it being imported, the U.S. can either let it slide or sue us through the dispute-resolution mechanism. What their government would do would depend on how powerful and vigorous the lobbying effort was by the wounded industry seeking redress. For its part, the Canadian Government would carefully consider the likely American reaction to any proposed new reg that had the effect of shutting out American exporters. These decisions don’t take place in a vacuum.
Saying that you prefer the FDA decision doesn’t change the fact that the Americans and Canadians BOTH establish health and safety separately for themselves.
It (rBST) is not an issue. Canada does not ban US milk, it is imported as it is.
Yet I pay only slightly less for beef and grains in the US than I do in Canada, and somehow Candian beef and grains producers are able to compete globally.
The real issue the dairy lobby's concentrated in Quebec. Maybe Poilievre can prove that a strong majority government is possible with minimal Quebec representation and finally slay the sacred cow.
Deconstructing the telecom, media, commercial air service and financial services oligopolies will be much more challening as they are concentrated in vote rich Ontario.
When a handful of global corporations are controlling the global grain and beef market, it's not really global competition. We're just along for the ride. Farmers and consumers have to accept whatever prices and terms JBS, Cargilll, and Bunge decide.
We either have democratically elected governments structure our markets, or we have powerful corporations structure our markets.
In many areas, there's a widening gap between perception and reality in Canada. How many think we have the best health care system, despite all the contrary facts?
Speaking of the gap between perception and reality, a four-litre bag of milk costs between $5 and $6 in Southern Ontario. That’s $1.50/ litre tops, not $4.20. Surprise surprise, that makes milk cheaper in Canada than in the U.K., according to the author’s figures. What else has he got wrong?
A quick google search for 1L milk cartons in my town ranges from $2.89 to $3.99.
Obviously buying 4L jugs will drop the price/L really dramatically ($5.55-6.65 here).
I think anyone whose milk consumption is high enough to worry about the price will be buying it by the (metric) gallon. A one-litre carton is just not a relevant comparison. Sure, if you bought 4 of those little 250 mL single-serving cartons in a convenience store, that litre would cost you a lot more than $1.50. Milk is a good value compared to money-wasters like tattoos, cigarettes, and bottled water, even if they’re cheaper in the States.
It's worth checking the carton to see if it's really a later. I have noticed some "litres" than kicked in around 940 pls. I don't drink milk anymore so I don't watch that.
I find a 4 litre bag of milk (yes in Ontario), is more than a dollar cheaper than buying it in a jug.
You are comparing different quantity prices. In Walmart in BC a 2 L carton costs $4.79 depending on city whereas, a 4 L carton costs $5.59. I guess you could say that you can get 2Ls of milk for 80 cents. Across the line I can get 2 Gals for $5 USD.
Yes, we know dairy is cheaper in the U.S. than in Canada. That’s why many Canadians want to let them export to us. My point in my original comment was that I think the author of the piece erred factually in saying milk is cheaper *in the UK* than in Canada. Not talking about the U.S. Milk doesn’t cost $4.40 per litre in any non-remote part of Canada unless you were buying that litre in tiny cartons.
This is important because the author claimed that the UK broke off trade discussions with us because we wanted to protect milk prices of $4.40 a litre, which is just not true, because milk doesn’t cost that much. Perhaps he will explain this better.
Many things are cheaper in the U.S. because of economies of scale, easier climate, shorter average distances between economic actors because of higher population density, and the generally less “sticky” U.S. economy and the lower tax and regulatory burden (no French on packages for example). If we imported U.S. milk, or enticed American grocery chains to operate here, they would face the same challenges here that keep Canadian prices high.
(Edited to correct my mistake on Greg's quote for the price here.)
I don’t disagree with the error you point out as that is about the price for a 2L carton here in Canada; however, you dodge the issue of increased consumer expenses to support one aspect of the food supply chain. Why dairy and not beef or pork producers?
I'm not dodging any issue. I just don't want to engage with it because it's beside the point, which was Greg Quinn's error on the milk price, on which he hangs his argument about why Britain walked away from free(r) trade talks. I really do hope he addresses this because if milk sells for that much *more* in Britain, and the cost of production is in proportion, it's unlikely that Canadians
will want to buy imported British cheese on price alone.
More generally, if he's wrong from carelessness on that, what does that do to the rest of his diatribe against Canada? That was an easily detectable error because all of us know what milk costs. What about his other facts that you would have to have read up on, or be in the business, to be able to question intelligently?
The answer to your question, why is dairy special?, is, of course, because it's a big deal in Québec. We all know that.
While dairy production in Quebwc is important, so it is also in Ontario and BC. Chicken, turkey and eggs are much bigger in Ontario than Quebec.
I've been aware of the dairy cartel for some time now. Their lobby seems very powerful. Anytime someone questions whether it's good for anyone other than the dairy industry, they circle the wagons and yell foul. Maybe I'm just spoiled, but I do question whether they could lighten up a bit so we could pay a little less for cheese and yogurt. Seems a lot of people won't even buy it anymore because of the price, and that can't be good for Big Dairy either.
Mr. Quinn seems to be ignoring the fact that the UK subsidizes their dairy industry. Before BREXIT, British dairy farmers obtain over £56 million in EU direct payments which make up almost 40% of their annual profits. Lowland and upland livestock farmers receive about £38 million in subsidies which make up over 90% of their annual profits! For the most part, the UK government has continued these subsidies.
The Canadian Government does not subsidize the Dairy Industry but through the farmer funded marketing boards, they guarantee a fair price to the farmer while using tariffs to protect the farmer's from cheap imports.
So in the UK, citizen's taxes are used to lower the cost of dairy products for the consumer and for export. In Canada, we pay higher prices for dairy products, but our tax dollars are not being used to subsidize it.
It is the same story in the USA - the government is subsidizing farmers and then complaining the their cheaper products are being assessed high tariffs to be imported into Canada.
Keep in mind, there is no ban against British cheese. There is just a very high tariff, which makes it rather unaffordable when considering the landed cost.
Subsidies would actually be less harmful to the public well-being than the raised food costs caused by "supply management".
What is atrocious about "supply management" is not even so much the tariffs imposed on imports as much as the quota system on domestic production. It is illegal to sell milk outside of the quota system *precisely because* there are Canadians who would be willing and able to sell milk and cheese at lower prices than are quota-owners.
The policy by design both kills jobs *and* raises prices for consumers. The policy has two different kinds of negatively affected groups and only one positively affected group (existing quota owners).
I don't really see how that will work. Yes, I have read stories about a few dairy farmers complaining about dumping milk. So they want to benefit from the high milk prices that the marketing board provides them with, and then also benefit by circumventing the system and selling his overage. The fact is, that managing milk production is not straight forward. Producers need to manage both the number of cows milking and the stage of lactation. The vast majority of producers do this effectively. If a farmer has the ability for overproduction, they always have the option to buy more quota.
Canada is also not the only country that dumps milk. Plenty do, including in the US where it is very common.
Although quota is a Canadian thing, most countries have some limits on what they can ship. In the US, if you ship over your quota, you are penalized.
The problem I see here is everyone is 'navel gazing' and never investigates how other countries deal with their protectionism vs. the benefits of exports.
Every system has its strengths and weaknesses. Anything I have read in the National Post (for instance) of late, is hyper-politicized with facts all cherry-picked. The US spends $10 Billion a year on agricultural subsidies. They could easily overwhelm Canadian producers if there were not some instruments in place to protect them.
We are talking about *legal restraints* on what is allowed to be produced, and we are talking about Canadians who are *legally barred* from the dairy industry. We are discussing laws and economics here, not business practices. The law as economically designed is intended to pass costs onto the broader populace to the benefit of a narrow interest group.
"In the US, if you ship over your quota, you are penalized."
What you are claiming is difficult to reconcile with the fact that American dairy is produced in excess to the point of becoming a significant export product. Canadian dairy is not.
"They could easily overwhelm Canadian producers if there were not some instruments in place to protect them."
Then why **arrest** Canadians who produce and sell dairy without quota?
Also in free trade negotiations that is something that can be negotiated away. If we were to open our markets then subsidized products could be barred.
Trade. When Mulroney brought in the ‘Free Trade Agreement’ he only looked South to the US and North to Canada. Too time consuming,I guess to consider East to West as well. Since the universe revolves around ON and Quebec,and the skeaky wheel gets the grease. I find it embarrassing that we have one(1) railroad across this country. One (1) Trans Canada single lane highway. Which I’m sure no Prime Minister has ever driven across. Ok,Ontario has the only single lane,most of the rest is double. I buy a tin of chew,Copenhagen in ON Rez store for $11. Alberta I’m charged $36. Montana it’s $5. No French writing,and telling me I’m going to die. Clay Arbuckle,Lac Ste Anne County,AB. PS And they sell beer at the Sev.
Love the your word skeaky . A combination of squeaky and skanky. Perfect fit!
There are two railways across the country, although CPKCS no longer operates east of Montréal. Both CN and CPKCS are in fact pivoting their Atlantic Ocean commerce to the Gulf of Mexico away from Halifax and Montréal, making them blockade-proof, in the East anyway, where the trouble-makers mostly are.
The main line of the Trans-Canada Highway (#17) is just not very important to commerce in Ontario, not enough to justify making it four lanes. Our commerce moves in other directions, all centred on Toronto, of course. Truck traffic from Manitoba to the Maritimes would be better to use divided freeways in the U.S. states south of Lake Superior and avoid the Ontario portion of the TCH entirely.
Yes to French or British cheese, cheaper food prices, and the inter-provincial trade barriers are ludicrous. At the same time, I want no part of growth-hormone laden US beef or milk, and other spooky animal husbandry practices. When it comes to food specifically, I'd like to see us cultivate both quality and lower price point.
If you don't want it, don't buy it. Leave others to decide what they want to buy.
Part of the fun in activist politics is using the law to prevent other people from buying things one thinks they shouldn’t be allowed to buy. I can understand why producer cartels want protective tariffs and regulations that keep out foreign competition. I don’t understand the argument coming from consumers. American milk, so labeled, should be sold alongside Canadian milk. If customers buy enough Canadian milk at the higher price to allow the Canadian dairy farmers to make a profit, good for them. But I bet they won’t.
Will we suffer without Canadian dairy farms? Probably. Which is why it’s complicated.
And what has to give, if you want better quality and cheaper prices? (Who doesn’t?!). How do you “cultivate” that? You’re talking economies of scale (which Canada will achieve only by allowing immigration 10 times what it is now) or lower income for farmers and the other workers in the agricultural sector.
Might be time to re-evaluate scare stories about hormones in American food. After Hallowe’en. Maybe these scare stories are propagated just to make us accept high protected Canadian prices so the farmers stay on the land.
I would actually love to buy more Canadian-made/produced. It takes effort, though, and it's often not even possible. Just the other day, I went to buy garlic. They had garlic from China, Russia, and the US. Why the heck can't Canada grow and sell garlic? And it's like this with everything. We produce very little here, and for the most part we as a country are perfectly fine with that. Dairy is our sacred cow, though 🐄 😉
American dairy conglomerates don’t want to truck cold liquid milk from Wisconsin to Flin Flon and Timmins, or even to Windsor and London. What they want access to is the market for milk solids for manufacturing milk products like cheese, yoghurt, and dozens of other things. If they undercut our dairy farmers for those lucrative products that are cheaper to transport long distances and put them out of business, who will supply fluid milk to Canadian grocery stores even in large border cities like Toronto? Not Wisconsin.
I don’t know if this argument holds water but it’s worth examining if the Canadian dairy market is opened to cross-border competition.
Bingo. The pay to play here is quite high and you need to be part of the club. A local farmer can't sell their milk here locally.
There is garlic production in Canada, but our climate is not so favorable for it. We grow some in our own garden.
Just like kiwis can grow in BC but not in the rest of Canada (unless in a greenhouse), so we import most of our kiwis.
It always amazes me how many Canadians go across the border, though, specifically to buy US dairy.
You may be willing to pay higher prices for Canadian products, I am not. Unfortunately, I do not have that choice because the dairy cartel has every party's politicians cowed (double meaning intended) into maintaining their businesses at the expense of Canadian consumers.
It’s a bit rich to wag your finger at Canada from a post-Brexit UK.
Their points are all spot on. Just because they have their issues doesnt mean we don't.
It would be awesome to wag (or more accurately, extend) a finger to Canada from post Quexit Quebec. Oops. They do it all the time now😆