IN AN attempt to write a national agricultural policy that appeals to its traditional prairie grain farmer base while attracting a newfound eastern Canadian farmer constituency, the Conservative party has created a contradiction that must be resolved.
At its core is the party’s position on farmers’ rights to choose how to market their products.
The Conservatives are promoting a policy that suggests prairie wheat and barley farmers must have the option of marketing outside the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly while telling Ontario and Quebec farmers that they can maintain their supply management marketing monopoly.
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These positions are contradictory. Both positions are defensible and may well represent political or policy wisdom on their own, but together they are a square circle.
And lest anyone suggests the difference is that prairie farmers are deeply divided on the wheat board issue while supply management farmers are unanimous in support of the system, it need only be noted that there are farmers in Ontario who have been in court for years trying to win the right to export dairy products outside the supply management monopoly. If the location was the Prairies and the commodity was wheat, the Georgian Bay Milk Company case would be poster boy victims for the Conservatives, fighters against heavy-handed monopolies the way Conservatives supported the border runners who defied the CWB.
But this is vote-rich Ontario and Quebec and suddenly, monopolies seem just fine.
Here are Stephen Harper’s words on the issue when he announced the party agriculture policy in Ontario Dec. 21: “A Conservative government will ensure that agricultural industries that choose to operate under domestic supply management remain viable. We will always support the goal of supply management to deliver high quality product to consumers at a fair price with a reasonable return to producers. Canadians need a supply management system based on the three pillars of efficient production planning, market-based returns and predictable imports.
“When it comes to non-supply managed industries like grains and oilseeds, our policies remain the same. We want to give farmers more freedom to make their own marketing and transportation decisions and to participate voluntarily in producer organizations, including the CWB.”
The wheat board position seems clear, although the Conservative leader did not specify, as he should, if affected grain farmers will be able to decide by vote whether they want to lose their CWB monopoly option. After all, he says as long as farmers “choose” supply management, they should be allowed to have it. But they don’t “choose” supply management. It is the law.
Buying quota because it is the only way to get into the business is hardly “choosing.”
The contradictory positions raise questions:
- Would supply managed farmers have to vote to make sure they want the current monopoly system, to demonstrate they “choose” the system? Why do dissenters not have the right to opt out?
- Should prairie grain farmers not have the same ability to “choose” a monopoly marketer if the majority wants, just as their dairy and poultry brethren seem to have been promised?
- Are there different policies for different regions and politically sensitive products?
