Dairy Farmers of Canada president Jacques Laforge figures the Liberal government has little room now to sign a future world trade deal that undermines supply management or the tariffs on above quota dairy products.
At the Liberal party national convention March 5 in Ottawa, delegates passed as party policy a strong resolution supporting supply management and insisting it be protected at World Trade Organization talks.
“This is now a Liberal priority policy and it is a strong position,” the New Brunswick dairy farmer said.
“The federal government has a very clear mandate and message from the party. If they come back from Geneva and say they tried but failed to protect the system and its three pillars, they will have defied the will of the party.”
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He said defenders of supply management will be out in force at next weekend’s Conservative party convention in Montreal to try to secure the same result.
The result at the Liberal convention was a coup for supply management promoters.
It was no surprise that Liberal delegates supported a resolution that called on the government to “defend and promote supply management, the Canadian Wheat Board and all single-desk selling during negotiations at the WTO.” Party policy for years has claimed to support the system.
The surprise was that it became a priority resolution voted on by all delegates and therefore embedded in party policy.
The supply management resolution was proposed by Liberal provincial parties from Manitoba and Ontario and was included in a bundle of resolutions during the defence and international affairs workshop.
Each policy workshop was able to send one of its resolutions forward to the full convention and supply management’s competition included a resolution opposing Canadian participation in the U.S. ballistic missile defence system, supporting expansion of the armed forces and supporting aid and trade with Africa.
Most delegates chose supply management as their priority resolution.
Supportive MPs, a handful of farmer delegates and supply management defenders attending the convention as observers had been working the hallways to stress the issue’s importance.
“But really, we didn’t do anything spectacular at the convention,” Laforge said.
“This is the result of work we have been doing all along, meeting with MPs, the dairy caucus and in our home areas.”
