A national debate on the future of supply management is under way and the industry leaders will be doing farmers a disservice by ignoring it, Canadian Alliance agriculture critic Howard Hilstrom said recently.
During an appearance by Dairy Farmers of Canada representatives before the Commons agriculture committee, Hilstrom argued that the future of the industry was changed when the Liberals agreed in 1995 to sign an international trade deal that left supply management dependent on high tariffs.
“The genie of supply management got let out of the bottle in 1995,” Hilstrom said.
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World Trade Organization negotiations are aimed at reducing protective tariffs. While Canada insists it supports supply management as an exemption, it also agrees with general tariff reductions for other products.
Meanwhile, many domestic consumer and processor groups are demanding that supply management sectors, and particularly dairy, open themselves to competition.
The lobby group Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance is in Geneva this week demanding that export interests take precedence over protectionist instincts.
Hilstrom asked DFC policy director Rick Phillips if the dairy industry recognizes the challenge and is prepared to go to WTO talks to compromise on tariff protection.
No, said Phillips. Supply management works and the Liberal government has promised to protect it in WTO talks, including maintaining existing protective tariff levels.
Hilstrom suggested this isolates the dairy industry from the movement in Canadian and world agricultural policy toward lower trade barriers and freer trade.
When Phillips said things are fine as they are, Hilstrom disagreed.
“This debate is going to go on,” he said. “I’m concerned that DFC leadership will use a hard-nosed position that will leave dairy farmers worse off than if they had been willing to negotiate and compromise.”
