There are no regulations limiting egg graders who import from the U.S. from declaring surplus eggs that producers need to pay to move over to the processing market.
Weeks after the Farm Products Council of Canada responded to my question about regulations to prevent abuses of the egg supply management system, the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food has responded to the same request. Both say they can find no regulations at the Egg Farmers of Canada or the Egg Farmers of Ontario levels of supply management.
Yet in recent years, the volume of U.S. eggs imported under supplementary import permits, especially just before Christmas, has continued to increase and, with it, the volume of surplus declarations in January.
There was a time when it was a breach of regulations to be both importing U.S. eggs and declaring surpluses, and Joe Hudson paid for breaching that regulation by being booted off the board of directors of the Ontario egg board. He was, of course, re-elected by his grading station's egg suppliers, as have been his daughter and now the general manager of his Burnbrae empire.
