The Canadian Egg Marketing Agency approved a 4.3 percent increase in the national production base for domestic consumption last week.
Based on population, 68 percent of the additional 810,000 laying birds authorized for the flock will go to Ontario and Quebec.
Alberta and Saskatchewan receive 13 percent of the new allocation. Manitoba receives none.
“By the formula we use, by the mathematics, Manitoba has too many birds for their population,” CEMA chair FŽlix Destrijker.
“That is not a political comment but just the formula.”
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Meanwhile, CEMA directors were unable to resolve a dispute with Manitoba, which has threatened to tear the national system apart.
Manitoba’s Grow For Processing program now includes 340,000 layers, far in excess of the 200,000 birds approved by CEMA for the out-of-quota program last year.
CEMA has imposed a $343,000 penalty on the province and says it is being penalized $3 per month for each of the 110,000 birds the national agency says are over-allocation.
Manitoba rejects the suggestion it is over-quota.
Last week during three days of meetings, CEMA directors remained divided. A motion that CEMA retaliate by stopping the purchase of industrial product from the province was tabled.
Directors will meet again within weeks to try to resolve the issue, which at times has produced threats from Manitoba that it will pull out of the national system if it cannot expand production for processing and export.
Some other provinces, led by Quebec, have angrily suggested Manitoba is being allowed to thumb its nose at national rules.
“It is clear we are still divided on this,” said Destrijker. “We have made progress on many issues but one member of our family remains unhappy. We need to be able to answer the needs of Manitoba and we have not found a way to do that yet.”
