They can’t start their own dairies in Canada without buying quota, and therefore any dairies they start will not increase the overall milk output of the Canadian dairy industry. That’s what supply management means. That’s why Canadian milk costs twice as much - because there’s not nearly as much available as people would like to buy.
I disagree with Rick that supply management should be completely eliminated tomorrow, but only because that would be grossly unfair to people who’ve just entered the dairy industry and spent a fortune on quota only to have it turn out to be money down the drain. Supply management needs to be either phased out over a number of years, or the government needs to instituted some sort of quota buyout.
Moot point, because the dairy lobby seems to have too much political clout for anything like that to even be considered.
Sounds like Uber versus the taxi industry. Only so many taxi plates to go around and so they used to be sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Needless to say the price is dropping.
Why the hell should the government be regulating taxi prices or milk prices? What a ridiculous concept.
The times they are a changin’.
Did the government protect the record industry as sales shifted? Did the government protect video stores as people moved to on-line streaming? What about newspapers? What about the electronics manufacturing industry?
No, I think it’s high time we throw this open to global trade and let the cards fall where they may.
An excellent point. This is the kind of industry that gets interventions like this in a lot of places – not just Canada. And the history, even on the Canadian side, is kind of complicated.
If the milk marketing board needs revision, then revise it. Become to politicized? Close it down and start over. I’m not unaware of how the checks and balances Canadians wanted, put in place, and pay for with their tax dollars, have, over time be twisted into something that often works against the interests of Canadians.
It’s not just the Dairy board. Look at the Brewers Retail, suddenly we’re getting beer in variety stores. Did anyone need this? Was anyone screaming for more access to beer? Petitions, marches, an election issue? No, but beer manufacturers sure do. And the board that we pay for, and is supposed to be watching out for our interests, over time has been hijacked by manufacturers, when various governments cut funding, lobbyists stepped in. A government that can’t inspect nursing homes is assuring us there will be inspections etc. Bullshit, I say. I know it’s provincial not federal but it’s, at its heart, it’s the same issue everywhere you look. Personally I don’t think we should be footing the bill for organizations that have jumped the shark and become tools of the industry they were meant to regulate.
The Dairy marketing board is a perfect example. If they aren’t working in our interests, get rid of them. Trying to fix the board, opening up completion is the solution, to me. Not shipping milk from freaking New Zealand!
Maybe when the one world government comes. In the mean time people will vote for politicians that keep their jobs over saving a dollar on their butter.
If they’re both just as good, then let’s favour the one that’s already in existence, supporting families and our economy, that way we can save all that fossil fuel and wear and tear on the world’s oceans.
Ridiculous. Sometimes protectionist policies can help get a native industry off the ground or weather a storm. Having an industry functioning at home isn’t useless because they can ship it in from. Zambia for cheaper. Don’t be a free market fundamentalist. It’s as stupid as every other fundamentalism.
What a coincidence, neither was I. I assume the cost of producing milk in Canada is naturally higher due to our climate, for one thing. Small population in a large area must mean higher transportation costs in getting it to market. Does that mean we should just give up providing our own milk?
It wasn’t an election issue, but yes, in fact, there were petitions for opening up beer sales in Ontario. They were run by a lot of convenience store operators, at least here in Ottawa, who would love to be able to sell beer like the same stores do in Quebec.
Of course, you’ll note, the new plan to expand beer sales to certain grocery stores still screws these guys…
I just found a wonderful website clearly outlining all of Trudeau’s election promises and tracking his adherence to them (with open comment sections on each promise).
Dairy supply management does not support 99% of Canadian families and isn’t helping the economy.
[QUOTE=Esox Lucius]
I assume the cost of producing milk in Canada is naturally higher due to our climate, for one thing. Small population in a large area must mean higher transportation costs in getting it to market. Does that mean we should just give up providing our own milk?
[/QUOTE]
How on earth would it be more expensive to do this in Canada than to ship it from overseas? What is our dairy industry so worried about? The answer is of ocurse that they are not; they have prevailed upon the government to get money for free by screwing the rest of Canada. Look up “Rent-seeking.”
If Canadians can produce milk and ship it to market efficiently, let them. If not, don’t prop them up by taking money away from people just to buy votes. We don’t need supply management in how we buy and sell any number of food products. Why do we need it with milk? It’s been created to buy votes.
Dairy supply management does not support 99% of Canadian families and isn’t helping the economy.
[QUOTE=Esox Lucius]
I assume the cost of producing milk in Canada is naturally higher due to our climate, for one thing. Small population in a large area must mean higher transportation costs in getting it to market. Does that mean we should just give up providing our own milk?
[/QUOTE]
How on earth would it be more expensive to do this in Canada than to ship it from overseas? What is our dairy industry so worried about? The answer is of ocurse that they are not; they have prevailed upon the government to get money for free by screwing the rest of Canada. Look up “Rent-seeking.”
If Canadians can produce milk and ship it to market efficiently, let them. If not, don’t prop them up by taking money away from people just to buy votes. We don’t need supply management in how we buy and sell any number of food products. Why do we need it with milk? It’s been created to buy votes.
Supply management is EXACTLY equivalent to the government steppjng in to, say, the laundry detergent industry, cutting off all imports of laundry detergent and then working with the detergent industry to set quotas, prevent competitors from entering the industry without buying quote from existing manufacturers, and even prohibiting, to a large extent, moving laundry detergent from province to province. Then the cost of a big jug of laundry detergent would go from $12 to $20, and everyone in Canada would be paying a small cadre of laundry detergent makers, and when someone suggested that it appeared to be a really stupid system, someone complains about how we shouldn’t import Tide from New Zealand.
Being able to sustain ourselves in laundry detergent is hardly on the same level as food production, but nevertheless, I’m getting your point.
After looking it up, I see that New Zealand’s agriculture economy is booming after the government cut subsidies. Its farms are so efficient that that they produce far more than the country needs, and are able to export that excess because it’s cheaper than that of other countries. So my question now is, what happens when all countries cut subsidies? New Zealand won’t have the advantage of having the cheapest products and its exports will, I assume, decline.