Courtesy of Les H.
August 18, 2018
The absurdity of Canada’s supply management over our dairy, eggs and poultry only shows the small mindedness and socialistic bent of all too many Canadians and our politicians. First off let me be clear up front, until recent years and for well over half of my adult life I was a blind supporter of supply management, CBC radio and other liberal brainwashing worked on me for such time. I think I like many Canadians just bought into it and accepted the fact that we paid more for said products to control quality (in reality that is not empirically true) and quality of life of our farmers who we tend to see as all just mom an pop operations. IE: the median family income of Canada is about $70,000.00. The dairy, egg and poultry farmers in Canada earn between $150,000 and $190,000.00 after tax income. So in essence a majority of Canadians PAY about 3 times more for dairy, eggs and poultry as opposed to our US neighbours yet we earn well below the average after tax income of these 13,000 or so farmers in supply management. The poor and less off supporting the higher class by govt. fiat. ABSURD!!!!
This beholden to supply management is so typical of Canadian small mindedness. Remember modern supply management in dairy, eggs and poultry did not really exist prior to 1971 in Canada. Our farmers more or less competed for market share. Yes you had some local cooperatives and such but it was much more free market in these areas.
Our oldest and longest supply management was our Wheat Marketing Boards and yes for decades our wheat was brought to market by the heavy hand of said boards. When the Wheat Marketing Boards were rolled back and disbanded many naysayers cried our that farmers will all go broke. THAT DID NOT HAPPEN! Wheat and grain farming got more competitive and more varied.
Pandering to dairy, poultry and egg supply management and farmers is so idiotically Canadian. These 13,000 or so farmers, about 7% of all farming in Canada and the corrupt businesses who built wealth on the backs of socialist marketing boards costs us as families money and costs our nation what could be better GDP.
So these farmers sell their wares to a market of 36,000,000 where under a free(er) trade set up they could for one easily sell more to a greater market of 320,000,000 just a few miles to the south of us. President Trump is 100% right on our corrupt supply management system. We as Canucks stand to be better off by getting more and freer access to 320,000,000 Americans than they can to our 36,000,000 Canadians. BUT WE ARE TOO DAMN LAZY AND SMALL MINDED!!! IT’S OUR NATIONAL LAMENT!!!
Oh I hear from naysayers, “But, but , but if our market is open the US farmers will just flood our farmers out of business.” BULL SHIT!!!!! International trade rules provide mechanisms to prevent and/or punish those who DUMP! It only requires proper judicial enforcement of such. But our dairy, egg and poultry farmers will under competition be able to sell their wares to not only 36,000,000 Canadians but over night (well after some sort of time period to ease and phase out our marketing boards) to 320,000,000 Americans and other international markets. These farmers can expand operations to make more profit, YES THEY WILL HAVE TO COMPETE!!! and not just sit back on socialistic marketing boards.
Yes, rules will have to go after US subsidies of their various agri businesses too. President Trump is a true believer in free(er) trade and is all about getting to as close to real reciprocal free trade as he can and he does not want subsidies as such propping up US agri business too.
In ending the major political parties in Canada all actively to stubbornly support supply management in including Scheer’s Tories. In fact the Liberals and NDP will seemingly sacrifice our much larger automotive manufacturing sector and also our much larger gas, oil and coal industries to prop up a corrupt supply management system notably in Quebec. Only Maxime Bernier appeared to be vocal about phasing out supply management. That said with Trump continuing to win and he will serve TWO terms, Scheer is our best though reluctant bet to better deal with supply management and other trade / NAFTA issues with The USA.
We thank Les H. for his great comments of an issue which needs to be exposed.
Les H. is a regular contributor to Easton Spectator and Puget Sound Radio
Time for a Conservative leadership review this week ?