Overhaul ‘autocratic’ syrup rules: report
Quebec’s “autocratic” control of maple syrup makers, a reign of terror which relies on bailiffs, security guards and the courts, is crippling t he province’s most celebrated export, and the province needs to abandon i ts maple syrup quotas, says a new report.
The report, released Thursday, warns that New York State alone boasts more maple trees than Quebec, and t he United States could become selfsufficient in maple syrup in 10 years, destroying the province’s biggest syrup export market.
Quebec’ s agriculture minister Pierre Paradis ordered the report last May after an article in the Financial Post described a pitched battle between some producers and t he federation of syrup makers.
In a system designed to give producers a fair price, the syrup federation tells each producer how much syrup they may make, is the sole authorized buyer of the syrup, sets one price for syrup, judges syrup quality and pays producers only when it sells their product.
Florent Gagné’s 69- page report, which he gave to the minister two months ago, notes that, “In an article titled ‘ Maple Syrup Rebellion’ in the Financial Post, journalist Peter Kuitenbrouwer describes with strong details the strained relations between the federation and many of its members. Other media then elaborated on ... spectacular seizures of barrels of syrup from producers and the surveillance of syrup producers by security guards hired by the f ederation, whose bills were then sent to the targeted producers.”
The federation tried to label the rebel syrup producers as “a few obstinate members,” Gagné notes, but “it is obvious that the malaise is much bigger than the federation cares to admit.
“Many producers feel a profound frustration with ‘ their’ union, which they see as a distant and authoritarian bureaucracy which defends a rigid system and its own corporate interests rather than its members,” writes Gagné.
While the number of taps Quebec producers have put in maple trees (some trees take more than one tap) has tripled to 43 million in 2015, Quebec’s share of the world’s maple syrup production has fallen.
“Producers outside Quebec benefit from the fixed Quebec price but have no quotas and needn’t contribute to marketing costs,” Gagné notes.
Paradis warned at a news conference Thursday that, “If the Americans decide to attack … you can talk to suppliers of Quebec maple syrup equipment, who have most of their business across the border. We need to find a market on this side. We had 80 per cent of the market, we went to 70 per cent, and now we’re heading to 60 per cent. Is that the direction we want to go?”
Quebec has forbidden increases in syrup production since 2009, even as world demand for syrup skyrockets, the report notes. “We should abandon the syrup quota system,” the report says.
Quebec should allow producers to sell bulk syrup to whom they wish, and that the federation should worry about syrup quality, not just quantity, the report adds.
Syrup producer Angèle Grenier welcomed the report. Last year the federation seized all 35 barrels of syrup from her sugar shack in StClotilde-de- Beauce, Que., and has only paid her 65 per cent of the value.
“They are withholding my money so I can’t defend myself,” she said.
In January, even as she fought in an appeal court in Quebec City for permission to export syrup to New Brunswick, the federation obtained a court injunction to seize her 2016 syrup, which she has not yet produced.
She welcomed the Gagné report.
“I am fighting for freedom,” she said.