Supply management myths busted
Good public policy is impossible without facts. Poor information leads to poor decisions, and people suffer.
Our job at the Canada West Foundation is to determine the facts — real ones — and conduct thorough analysis. Unfortunately, supply management of our dairy, poultry and egg production in Canada is an issue where “alternative facts” dominate the debate.
Because of this, before we start our mythbusting, there are a couple of facts we feel obliged to note: No group, person or organization with any interest in dismantling supply management funds our work on this issue.
We recommend practical public policy directions which are non-partisan, non-ideological. We don’t get paid by anyone to support dismantling supply management. We have great respect for the hard work done by all of Canada's farmers and we want fair treatment for all.
However, the dairy lobby is one of Canada’s richest and most powerful. It spends more than $100 million every year on lobbying and marketing — aimed at politicians, the public, trade negotiators, and, most frustratingly, farmers.
The myths they tell have their own producers scared, the public inured to exorbitant dairy prices, and politicians completely cowed. We believe that some myth busting is needed.
There is not a single voice in Canada that supports supply management that does not have a vested interest — financial, political or otherwise — in seeing it preserved. And there is a lot of money at stake.
But where does all that money come from? It comes from average Canadian families, who pay almost $600 more per year for basic nutrition than they should. Farming can indeed be hard work, but so is teaching, mining, nursing, construction, and many other Canadian jobs.
Why then, should dairy producers — not even a mere six per cent of Canadian farmers — each be worth, according to Statistics Canada on average, net, almost $5 million?
We don’t know too many millionaire teachers, miners, nurses or carpenters. Also according to Statistics Canada, the average Canadian dairy farmer earns a profit — “after all family salaries have been paid” — of an extra $150,000.
Imagine a teacher, miner, nurse or carpenter pocketing, “after all family salaries have been paid,” an extra $150,000.
Meanwhile, we are under tremendous pressure on NAFTA, and we have tariffs on steel, aluminum and possibly soon, cars. Yet while dairy is a huge irritant for Donald Trump, we continue to defend it, in doing so sacrificing many of our other economic sectors.
Every Canadian who works in the auto sector; in a steel mill or aluminum plant; or in any factory that manufactures goods using steel or aluminum should be furious as the Canadian government risks their jobs, continuing to defend supply management to the benefit of what is now a small number of wealthy producers, purely for domestic politics.
Martha Hall Findlay is president and CEO of the Canada West Foundation. Her career has spanned law, business, technology, politics and public policy.