Diminished dairy influence cited | Liberal MP says politicians have little to fear from changes to supply managed systems
Former Liberal MP and trade critic Martha Hall Findlay issued an explosive call June 21 for an end to supply management.
An hour later, MPs gathered in the House of Commons down the street from her news conference for the last question period before the 12-week summer break.
There was not a single question to the government or by government MPs about her call for an end to the 40-year-old system of production controls, import tariffs and cost-of-production pricing.
Findlay could not have been surprised.
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She told an Ottawa news conference that there is an unspoken political agreement that the issue shall not be raised, mainly because of the fear that any challenge to the supply management system would carry a strong political price.
“What has frustrated me over the years is the number of politicians who have said behind the scenes that we understand supply management has to go but we don’t think we can, we are worried about the vote, we don’t want to lose the next election,” she said.
Hall Findlay, in a study published by the University of Calgary School of Public Policy, argued that electorally, politicians have nothing to fear.
There are fewer than 13,000 dairy farmers and in every riding, they are vastly outnumbered by farmers who export and by tens of thousands of voters with no direct attachment to the industry.
She called supply management a regressive policy that costs Canadian families hundreds of dollars more each year for basic commodities such as dairy, poultry and eggs. Poor Canadian families are particularly hard hit, she added.
She called on sectors hurt by the policy to “rally around” a call to dismantle it.
Hall Findlay said dairy’s voter influence has fallen dramatically since the system was created 40 years ago and no longer determines electoral results.
Even if the Conservatives dismantled supply management and “all hell breaks loose” and dairy farmers and their supporters vote against the government, Conservatives still would win a majority based on last election results, she said.
“Put simply, the dairy farmers, as wonderful as they are, do not represent the same political force they might once have,” she said.
“Politicians should do what is right and not what they think is politically necessary.”
The former MP, defeated in the 2011 election but hoping for a return, proposed that Canada do what Australia did 12 years ago: end tariffs and price setting but use a consumer retail levy to compensate dairy farmers during an extended transition period.
While politicians were largely silent, supply management opponents in media and business piled on with predictions that the study published by a potential Liberal leadership candidate and trade critic could be a game changer.
There were columns about Canada’s trade-suppressing supply management system and newspaper editorials on the issue.
Jack Mintz, director of the conservative University of Calgary School of Public Policy that has been a major influence on the current Conservative government, told the news conference the government’s ability to end the 70-year-old CWB sales monopoly this year is a symbol of how agricultural sacred cows can be tackled.
“On the supply management issue, I think we are at a very important juncture in Canadian history because we can ask ourselves if we want to be a major trading country diversifying trade and looking at emerging markets or are we going to be a country that is going to be like a turtle that puts its head and feet back into its shell,” he said.
“Supply management is an issue I think we have to deal with.”
He said getting rid of the system would be a milestone similar to Canada’s 1988 free trade deal with the United States.
“I think this report is also a milestone in Canadian history, and I do hope we are sowing the seeds of change.”
The supply-managed sectors issued a statement that said Hall Findlay’s analysis was misleading.
For the most part, the politicians steered clear.
