by BETTER FARMING STAFF
The Canadian Federation of Agriculture’s national agriculture leaders debate, carried live on the organization’s website Monday, highlighted the two solitude's if nothing else. If you are a unilingual English speaker, you missed a quarter of the debate because Bloc Québécois agriculture critic Andre Bellavance spoke only in French. If you speak French only, you were sidelined for 75 per cent of the discussion because the other three debaters spoke only in English. There was no on-line translation.
What we did get were a series of thoughtful questions from farmers from across the country on trade, business risk management, environmental sustainability, and food safety. Responses seemed largely scripted, there was little drama and there were no surprises.
The debaters were Bellavance, Gerry Ritz, minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, Wayne Easter, Liberal agriculture critic, NDP representative Pat Martin and Green Party agriculture representative Kate Storey.
If there was a spark in this debate, it was around free trade and supply management with everyone draping themselves in the supply management flag while spreading the blame for threats to supply management stemming from World Trade Organization negotiations.
While Ritz said the government had lost “wiggle room” in international trade negotiations because of commitments made by the Liberals during the Doha round of negotiations which began in 2001, Easter said the Liberals are the party of supply management. “We are the ones that brought in supply management. We’re the party of supply management and we support it strongly and we believe in supply management.”
The NDP’s Martin said Ritz’s attempts to shut down the Canadian Wheat Board are proof he does not support supply management. “You have spent the better part of your career trying to undermine and sabotage the Canadian Wheat Board,” Martin said. He said Ritz “expects” the WTO to “do your dirty work” and dismantle supply management in Canada.
Easter said if the Canadian Wheat Board goes, supply management “wouldn’t be far behind.”
Ritz assured viewers, “We’ve always fully supported our supply management sector.” BF
Watch the debate.
Comments
Politicians wrapping themselves in the supply management flag is a relic of the days of fixed exchange rates and the price of gold fixed at $35 per ounce, not to mention politicans boasting about being born in log cabins.
Come on, politicians and farm groups, this isn't the 1970's any more, why are you so-fiercely pretending it is, especially since nobody under the age of 35 (if my farm tax clients are to be believed)has any use for supply management?
What is it about yesterday's solutions being today's problems that baby-boomer politicians and farm groups just don't understand?
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
As a follow up, how many of your farm tax clients under the age of 35 think that current land prices are fairly priced???
There are many times when a quota purchase "penciled out" ahead of a land purchase. Have land purchases ever penciled out, using prices at the time of closing?
If there is no support for supply management from the younger farmers than the problem of supply management will go away as no buyers step up to the plate to buy quota, and the price of quota will go to zero.
About a week ago, I watched a discussion about ethics in politics on Steve Paikin's show on TV Ontario. Paikin asked panelists what they thought were the biggest lies ever perpetuated by Canadian politicians. At the top of the list was Pierre Trudeau's promise of no wage and price controls during an election campaign in the early 1970s. Six weeks later, after he had won the election, Trudeau promptly introduced wage and price controls.
The best comment of the evening then came from panelist Robin Sears, former National Director of the New Democratic Party, and Chief of Staff to former Ontario Premier Bob Rae. Sears claimed that the longest-running misrepresentation perpetuated by all Canadian political parties had to do with supply management. Sears went on to say that even though supply management is "a licence to steal from consumers", no politician can ever allow himself/herself to say so.
So, on one hand we have ag politicians falling all over themselves to boast about the wonderfulness of supply management, while at almost exactly the same moment, one of the most-astute political observers in the country tells a completely-different story, and not only doesn't have anybody on the panel of political experts disagree with him, he gets nods of agreement from them.
This type of comment from someone as well-connected, and as politically-experienced as Sears, clearly indicates none of the politicians in the ag leaders debate believes a word of what they said about supply management - unfortunately farmers will be the greater fools if they believe any of it.
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
Sounds like an interesting panel.
There seem to be several interesting issues that never seem to get addressed in this discussion.
What is wrong with a Made in Canada price for a made in Canada product? The Canadian public seems satisfied with this concept: Canada is the largest supplier of crude oil to the United States, yet gasoline is cheaper at American pumps than at Canadian pumps.
Supply management is in ag commodities which have no storage life on the farm. There's a explanation for this. All a processor had to do was say "I have enough product". Then, since the farmer can't store eggs, milk, or properly sized poultry, the farmer would have to search out another processor, and/or offer to "give" their product away. The market would be "glutted" and prices would tumble for weeks. And, along those lines, more recently, corn users would import Michigan corn, even though more expensive, so that it could be "shown" Ontario corn was uncompetitive. Great deal, pay $.30 more a bushel for a few Michigan trucks, and then pay $.35 cents a bushel less for the next 1,000 trucks of Ontario corn...Games still get played.
SM may not be perfect but what is wrong with a Made in Canada price?
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