Better Farming - December 2016

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56 Follow us onTwitter @BetterFarmingON Better Farming December 2016
THEHILL
legislation was approved.
Actually, the battle to protect the
Canadian dairy industry from cheap
American imports stretches back at
least 130 years. Then customs minis-
ter Mackenzie Bowell moved a
parliamentary motion in April 1886
that “the importation into Canada of
oleomargarine, butterine or other
substitutes for butter is hereby
prohibited under a penalty of $200,
together with the forfeiture of such
goods and packages in which they are
contained.”
And there have always been critics,
usually consumer, academic and free
enterprise opponents of what they see
as a monopoly that hurts consumers
and the poor by keeping domestic
milk, egg and poultry prices higher
than these products would be with
more competition.
Current critics range from Conser-
vative Party leadership candidate
Maxime Bernier, who is promising to
eliminate the system if elected, to
former Conservative/Liberal MP
Martha Hall Findley, recently named
president of the Calgary-based
Canada West Foundation. Then there
are the university economics profes-
sors who embrace free trade while
happy to enjoy their tenured posi-
tions that protect their jobs.
Inside the Conservative Party,
whose founding members were
Reformers from the West opposed to
anything resembling protectionism,
there has been little enthusiasm for
Bernier’s proposal to eliminate supply
management.
Former agriculture minister Gerry
Ritz, a Saskatchewan grain farmer
who came to Ottawa in 1997 as a
Reformer, thinks a bold promise to
end supply management is a
non-starter. As minister, he was a
strong supporter of the system.
“We have evolved,” Ritz said when
reminded of Reform anti-supply
management roots.
Sylvain Charlebois, dean of the
Dalhousie University Faculty of
Management in Halifax, offers the last
word. He is not a fan of supply
management restrictions but argues
that any proposal to end the system
would involve huge costs to buy out
quota and a disruption in the affected
industries.
Bernier consulted Charlebois on
his policy. Charlebois said the
candidate ignored his advice that a
sudden end to supply management
would create chaos and a huge
government liability for quota value
purchased under government policy.
“There is no depth in the argument
that we have to end supply manage-
ment altogether,” Charlebois said in
an interview. “You have to deal with
the legacy. Supply management is and
will evolve but it will remain in some
form.” BF
Barry Wilson is a member of the
Parliamentary Press Gallery and
specializes in agriculture.
Digital Vision/Getty Images photo
“There is no depth in the argument that we have to end supply
management altogether, ” according to Sylvain Charlebois.