The Régis in Quebec has granted approval for the marketing board to implement an agreement with Ontario designed to stop inter-provincial movement of live chicken.
About 10 per cent of the chickens raised in each province are being sold to processing plants in the other province, usually at premium prices. That means trucks are passing each other on the Queen Elizabeth Way, hauling chickens in opposite directions.
Now that the Régis has made its move, the Ontario Farm Products Marketing Council is likely to soon follow suit.
There is one small fly in the ointment in Quebec; the Régis said there needs to be an effort made to satisfy concerns raised by two small-volume processors. They are so tiny that most observers expect they won't, or can't, hold up the deal.
Of course, there still remains a huge question: how can the marketing boards defy an agreement all of the premiers of Canada's provinces and territories have put in place to reduce inter-provincial trade barriers?
We shall see.
On the other hand, if this deal doesn't work, a recent decision by the Superior Court in Quebec that struck down the temporary moratorium on any increase in out-of-province chicken contracting will return the chicken industry to wide-open competition.
Geri Kamentz, chairman of the Ontario Farm Products Marketing Commission, has said supply management for the chicken industry cannot survive if premiums continue to be demanded/offered for live chicken. All of the Ontario-Quebec trade restriction moves are supposedly aimed at curbing or eliminating premiums.
Whatever happened to the simple idea that increasing supplies will satisfy demand and eliminate premiums? Ask the directors of the Chicken Farmers of Canada, the national agency that establishes production volumes and then carves the pie into provincial pieces. And ask the big chicken-processing companies who consistently urge production restraint; that makes it easy for them to sell every bird they process because nobody has to work very hard if there isn't enough supply to meet demand.
Of course, this all leads to a dead end for the Canadian chicken industry when tariffs eventually come down and they face competition from companies in other countries, such as the United States, Brazil and Chile.
