Dairy and poultry farmers are about to spend a small fortune sending leaders to Geneva where they intend to lobby whoever will listen in an attempt to preserve Canada's trade barriers during World Trade Organization negotiations..
I think this is a huge waste of money.
There is no other country involved in the negotiations that has any interest in preserving Canada's high tariffs. They are, in fact, annoyed or downright angry about Canada's absolute refusal to budge on supply management.
The presence of our supply management leaders at Geneva serves only to raise the profile of our stubborn defiance of all that the talks are aimed at accomplishing. Canadian farmers would be better advised to keep everybody at home, and our heads down, so the others won't notice that Canada is so totally out of step.
Carolynne Griffiths, the lame-duck chair of the Ontario egg board, has written a letter to all of egg and pullet quota holders, justifying her trip to Geneva on the basis two old wives' tales - that 90 per cent of success is simply showing up and that those who show up make the rules.
In this case, showing up will not bring success. And our dairy and poultry industry leaders will not be making any rules in these trade talks.
Griffiths says every country has sensitive sectors that it is trying to protect, and therefore Canada's dairy and poultry sectors are far from alone at the negotiations. Yes, Carolynne. However, no other country is trying to protect a system as unique as Canadian supply management. Second, every country knows that the negotiations underway aim to cut protectionism across the board. The last time, all protections were converted into tariffs. This time, the negotiations are to lower tariffs.
If Griffiths wants to strike a meaningful blow for the preservation of supply management for the Ontario egg industry, she could aggressively investigate allegations of cheating by Burnbrae and Gray Ridge.
