Supply management is farm producers sharing the market by volume and by price. Farmers, who are hard working, built this system to help each other and themselves.
Such enterprising farmers realized that they needed government legislation so that the idea would work for the public good.
The system has worked very well for farmers when compared to the open market, which existing previously.
During the 1992-93 World Trade Talks, Canada agreed to a slow death of the supply managed systems for eggs, milk and poultry. This was never the wishes of the farmers or of the consumers. This is a wish of the trans-national food companies who have a desire to profit from what they feel would be lowered prices of raw products.
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Mr. Larry Maguire and the Western Canadian Wheat Growers know this history very well as they have pushed for every policy option that would cause the farm-gate price of commodities to decline.
Mr. Maguire would never put his views of history in these terms. Instead he says we need to compete or let the marketplace decide….
When the Canadian government negotiated away supply management at the WTO talks, Larry Maguire was interviewed on CBC radio. He was asked what he thought about the tariffication.
He said the people involved in the Supply Managed industry have been protected from the forces of the marketplace for long enough. It’s time they were forced to share the pain.
Here is admission that it is not right to work together to build an industry. It is right to eke out a living only by your own skills and while you do it, not to care if you cause others harm.
So farmers are trapped by our own decisions. We can easily overproduce a great number of commodities and have done so.
But we are not to look to each other or the government to solve our problems according to Mr. Maguire. Farmers watch as other professions organize and bargain for their earnings with the strength of unity …
– Ian L. Robson,
Deleau, Man.
