Dairy’s biggest enemy | New Zealand campaigns against Canada’s supply management system
Supply management is an “incredible” system in almost every way, but it is threatened by forces like New Zealand, historian Bruce Muirhead told an appreciative crowd at the Manitoba Dairy Conference.
Muirhead, a University of Waterloo professor, condemned the modern world’s embrace of neo-liberalism and painted a picture of hypocritical foreign countries subsidizing their own dairy industries while claiming to want free trade.
“Why is it they’re so opposed to what we are doing,” said Muirhead, who noted agricultural production is only a small part of most countries’ economies and a tiny part of economies in advanced countries.
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“Ideology comes down, I think, to a good part of the reason as to why the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) and the WTO (World Trade Organization) and certain other governments are opposed to Canada’s supply management system,” he said.
Muirhead said supply management was a product of an age in which government-based economic arrangements were seen as part of the solution to problems, while now many societies see government as more of a problem.
Supply management is under intense scrutiny around the world, especially because Canada is trying to negotiate a trade deal with the European Union and has begun its negotiations for the Trans Pacific Partnership.
Muirhead said Europe has shown signs of allowing Canadian supply management to survive as long as Canada ditches its favourable arrangements for generic drug makers.
However he doubts the TPP, driven by free trade advocate New Zealand, will be as willing to compromise.
“Most people probably think of New Zealand as a nice little country where they filmed Lord of the Rings and they have hobbits, but actually New Zealand is our number one enemy when it comes to dairy,” he said.
Muirhead painted a menacing portrait of New Zealand’s Fonterra, although he paid tribute to the giant dairy co-operative’s significant profitability. It not only dominates its nation’s production but also has operations in South America, Africa and Asia.
Muirhead said the company wants access to Canadian markets and maybe even production, so it sees supply management as a primary obstacle. The New Zealand government’s campaign against Canadian supply management is chiefly driven by Fonterra, Muirhead said.
“Whatever it is that Fonterra wants, the New Zealand government sets out to achieve for it,” said Muirhead.
He said Canada’s supply management system makes sense but is under tremendous pressure because of aggressive trade competitors such as Australia, the United States and Europe and because it is out of kilter with the prevailing world economic ethos.
However, he said Canadians should fight for it.
“It’s really quite an incredible system we have here.”
