Breakenridge: Supply management ignored for sexier political battles
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Supply management is not something that typically shows up these days on most lists of Alberta's grievances with Ottawa.
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In fact, there's likely still a fair amount of support for the supply management system among those in these regulated sectors of agriculture — dairy, eggs and poultry. Conversely, it's not something the Alberta government has devoted much time or energy to; the same goes for many of the other voices who have demanded a fairer deal for our province within Canada.
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But not only is it a system that is bad for consumers and harmful to potential trade deals, it also disadvantages the West in favour of Quebec. Alberta's government should not only be opposing the latest attempt in Ottawa to shield supply management from any future trade agreements, but we should be pushing for the end of supply management itself.
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In short, supply management operates like a legal cartel system, where valuable quotas limit and control who participates in the market, where prices are set by a marketing board (which also involves discarding significant quantities of milk each year), and where foreign competition is kept out by a wall of sky-high tariffs. Despite the argument that the system protects farmers, there are far fewer dairy farms now than before supply management came into existence.
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It should come as no surprise that even with cross-party support in Ottawa for supply management, its biggest political champion is the Bloc Québécois. The Bloc has once again tabled legislation that would legally preclude the government from including supply management in any future trade talks. The most recent attempt managed to pass in the House of Commons, but got stalled in the Senate.
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This is no small point. Last year, the U.K. walked away from trade talks with Canada over our intransigence on this issue. The U.S. has made its displeasure with supply management well known, even though CUSMA did allow for some minor carve-outs for American products.
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The rest of the ag sector, on the other hand, is quite heavily reliant on access to foreign markets. Alberta exports billions of dollars worth of just beef and canola products to the U.S. each year. As the Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance warns, this bill would 'harm the thousands of farmers, ranchers, processors and agri-food exporters who rely on open access to global markets.'
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But there's another aspect to this issue that's highlighted in a recent report from the Macdonald-Laurier Institute — the regional favouritism that supply management creates.
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