{"id":655,"date":"2025-05-04T11:45:31","date_gmt":"2025-05-04T19:45:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theholmteam.ca\/?p=655"},"modified":"2025-05-10T13:45:32","modified_gmt":"2025-05-10T21:45:32","slug":"note-to-carney-the-truth-about-supply-management","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theholmteam.ca\/index.php\/2025\/05\/04\/note-to-carney-the-truth-about-supply-management\/","title":{"rendered":"Note to Carney: the TRUTH about SUPPLY MANAGEMENT"},"content":{"rendered":"
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If Canadian\u2019s understood supply management better, Canada’s former Agriculture Minister Eugene Whelan would be right up there with Tommy Douglas for having created a brilliant public policy vehicle to sustain the economic health and food security of communities now and into the future.<\/p>\n

Trump \u2013 seeking the support of Michigan and Wisconsin\u2019s dairy farmers – will undoubtedly again call for SM\u2019s head in upcoming tariff negotiations. Why? Cause US farmers are price-takers \u2013 at the mercy of large, vertically integrated dairy processors. \u00a0 Losing money, they need to milk more cows to pay the bills.\u00a0\u00a0 If \u2013 under the guise of trade deals but, in fact, bowing down to trade bullying \u2013 we allow Ottawa to diminish Canada\u2019s supply management programs for milk, poultry and eggs, we endanger our rights as a nation to sovereign food policy.\u00a0 We ensure our precious farmland will be depleted to provide short term return to multinationals rather than preserved and enhanced for the next generation of the family farm.\u00a0 We destroy the economic fabric of rural communities.<\/p>\n

Yes Canada has high tariffs against dairy imports.\u00a0 A key outcome of the Uruguay Round of the GATT (1986-1994) was the “tariffication” of agriculture, which involved converting non-tariff barriers in agriculture into tariff equivalents.\u00a0 <\/span>Like Trump’s China tariffs, they are meant to stem imports.\u00a0 Unlike Trump’s China tariffs, they are doing so for good, solid public policy reasons.\u00a0 Under Canada’s Supply Management system, which covers milk, chicken, turkey, eggs and hatching eggs, farmers receive their fair cost of production (allowing them to continue to farm sustainably), and consumers are assured a continuous supply of a safe, high quality product that meets Canadian demand.<\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s system of Supply Management is good public policy.\u00a0 Period.<\/p>\n

Below are links to some of my columns in defense of Supply Management.<\/p>\n

COLUMNS<\/p>\n

2017<\/p>\n