Maxine Bernier,
candidate for the leadership of the Conservative party, has sent an open letter
praising the criticisms against Canada’s dairy supply management raised by U.S.
President Donald Trump.
Trump has called
supply management unfair to U.S. dairy farmers and has made it a target in
negotiations for a new North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
Bernier in his
open letter said:
“I agree
with you that this protectionist system is unfair for the farmers in Wisconsin
and other states, who cannot make a better living by selling their products to
their Canadian neighbours.
“But you
will excuse me if I say I am mostly sorry for a much larger group: the 35
million Canadians who are paying on average twice as much as they should for
their eggs, chicken and dairy products.
“Canadian
families, especially low-income ones with children, suffer because of the
hundreds of dollars in extra cost they need to pay each year to support this
system. Isn’t it unfair?
“I’m
also sorry for the Canadian producers protected from competition by this
cartel. It’s actually very unfair for some of them, too.
“They
have to pay $24,000 to $40,000 a cow to their protection racket for a piece of
paper giving them the right to produce a certain quantity of milk – and that’s
before paying for the cow itself!
“Even
when they run a very efficient farm, they cannot grow and sell to foreign
markets. That’s the price to pay for not allowing foreigners to sell here.
“And
finally, I think it’s very unfair that in order to keep a system that favours
less than 10 per cent of Canadian farmers, our government has not been able to
negotiate better trade deals for the other 90 per cent of farmers, or for other
industrial sectors looking to export their goods,” Bernier’s letter says.
Canadian
dairy farmers have been countering that the U.S. dairy policy results in
surplus production that drives down prices and that’s what’s unfair.
