Bernier resisting supply-side farmers’ pressure
Conservative leadership candidate Maxime Bernier is not caving in.
Despite the unusual and unprecedented mobilization of Quebec’s agricultural producers to block his election as head of the party, Bernier said he won’t back down on his plan to abolish the country’s supply management system.
“Absolutely not,” Bernier said. “I expected this. It’s an interest group defending their own interests. I didn’t expect them to do otherwise.
“Compared to other agricultural producers who have no supply management (system), they have a privilege. Ninety per cent of other agricultural producers (in Canada) work in the free market.
“But my role as a politician is to defend the interests of all Canadian consumers, and this is the best position for all Canadian consumers.”
Bernier, one of 14 candidates vying for the party leadership since Stephen Harper left, made the comments during a sweeping interview with the Montreal Gazette Thursday in his home riding of Beauce, south of Quebec City.
Bernier, a former Harper cabinet minister who does not shy away from his right-wing views, kicked off his campaign with a bang when he announced that, if he becomes prime minister one day, supply management will go the way of the dodo bird.
Supply management is a system that regulates supply and enables farmers to collectively negotiate the price of milk, eggs and poultry. Producers in return get guaranteed markets, sheltered from the usual perils of farming.
Critics, however, say the system is unduly protectionist, limits choices and keeps prices high when a free market would allow consumers access to cheaper products — including those from the United States.
Bernier says if it was abolished, every Canadian family would have an additional $500 in their pockets a year.
Pointing out the window of his riding office, Bernier said everyone in the Beauce knows they can get eggs and milk at half the price by crossing the border to shop in Jackman, Maine.
Quebec’s farmers beg to differ and are going to war. Over the last few weeks, farmers in a number of regions have started to purchase Conservative membership cards to be able to vote against Bernier in the May leadership election.
Although it’s difficult to say how many “instant Conservatives,” have bought membership cards, close to 8,000 producers have signed up on a save supply management Facebook page in the last two months.
It is theoretically possible for them to make inroads or even seize control of ridings. Half of Quebec’s 78 federal ridings currently have fewer than 50 Conservative members. In Gaspé riding there are five members.
Yet each riding gets a vote in the election.
“Yes it (the campaign) can hurt me,” Bernier said. “They are oneday Conservatives, not real Conservatives.”
But Bernier said Canadians appreciate a politician who has principles and stands by them.
“I am the only elected person in Ottawa who is not afraid of the cartel and wants to defend consumers and I am proud of that.”
The Conservatives elect their new leader in May.