MONTREAL — Delegates to the New Democratic Party policy convention voted almost unanimously April 12 to pledge their support for the supply management system.
That is hardly surprising.
Support for the dairy, egg and poultry industry system of production controls, price setting and border protection has long been a staple in NDP speeches and House of Commons questions.
But for NDP agriculture critic Malcolm Allen, the vote was an important attempt to correct an error in the party’s 2011 election platform.
Through an oversight, it became the only party not to officially support supply management in their campaign document.
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Allen told the convention that when Dairy Farmers of Canada first raised the issue, he thought they were wrong.
He discovered otherwise.
“It was an oversight,” he told the convention. “We can’t afford an oversight like that.”
With little time set aside during the three-day convention for public policy debates and just six resolutions debated and approved in the session on the economy Friday afternoon, Allen made sure it was given priority.
He said the system will be under renewed trade attack because Canada has joined the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade negotiation that includes such staunch supply management critics as the United States and New Zealand.
Meanwhile, domestic critics have been waging their own attack, using reports and media to argue that the system should be dismantled or phased out.
“At this moment in the media, the system is under attack,” he said. “We New Democrats need to push back.”
No one spoke against the resolution, but several delegates voted no and a few more abstained. The rest of the more than 2,000 delegates supported it.
