The appointment of former dairy farmer leader John Core as chair of the
Canadian Dairy Commission is likely to sharpen divisions between the
supply managed dairy sector and its industrial customers.
On Oct. 3, agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief announced that former
Dairy Farmers of Canada president John Core from Wyoming, Ont., will be
the new CDC chair.
He joins former DFC president Louis Balcaen from Manitoba on the
three-member board.
There was no official comment on the appointment from the Canadian
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Restaurant and Foodservices Association, which is the most powerful
lobby against the price-fixing powers of supply management and its
influence over the dairy commission, which sets minimum prices for
industrial milk products.
Privately, a member of the lobby for industrial buyers of dairy
products said the appointment was troubling. “It appears to put the
dairy farmer lobby in charge of the entire system, while the dairy
commission was supposed to be the arbiter between suppliers and buyers
in the industry.”
Current Dairy Farmers of Canada president Leo Bertoia from Langham,
Sask., said in an interview the appointment is a good one because “John
knows all sides of the industry and he will be fair to all sides.”
It was a view echoed by Vanclief: “John Core is no longer a dairy
farmer and even when he was president of Dairy Farmers of Canada, he
was seen as very balanced.”
Core replaces two less-than-successful CDC chairs, from a federal point
of view.
Guy Jacob, a former senior Quebec bureaucrat who was replaced in 2001,
broke ranks with the federal Liberals by insisting publicly that Ottawa
had signed the death warrant for supply management in the 1994 world
trade agreement.
His replacement, former Quebec agriculture minister Michel Pagé, got
into trouble in his first speech to dairy farmers last January by
promising he would begin to increase dairy prices last August.
It was not government policy and Pagé quickly retracted the promise,
but his credibility with Ottawa and the dairy farmer lobby never
recovered.
