CALGARY — Supply management... a Canadian phenomenon.This phenomenon is responsible for dumping 6.8 billion liters of raw milk since 2012 — with an estimated value of $14.9 billion, which could have been enough milk for 4.2 million people.This is according to a 2025 study by multiple researchers, including the Food Professor, or Dr.Sylvain Charlebois, who runs an agri-food analytics lab at Dalhousie University. This milk has been vanishing from Canadian dairy farms, with an estimated hundreds of millions to one billion litres of milk a year being discarded..To paint a nice picture for you, this would roughly fill 533 Olympic-size swimming pools — of wasted milk.How is this related to supply management, you may ask?This milk is being discarded to prevent oversupply and maintain elevated prices.As Charlebois states, "In a country grappling with food affordability, the deliberate destruction of food on that scale is increasingly difficult to justify—and even harder to defend publicly.".According to a report last November, Canada artificially increased the price of its milk between 2022 and 2024 by 28%.The feds also announced they would be increasing milk prices by 2.3% in February this year.The feds have failed to acknowledge the need for a reform of the supply management policy that artificially inflates the price of dairy — while gatekeeping the industry for large dairy farmers.According to Charlebois, supply management affects how dairy market access is administered under the Canada-United States Mexico Agreement (CUSMA)..Tariff Rate Quotas (TRQs) were meant to balance domestic protection with trade agreements.However, "in practice, they have become instruments that reinforce concentration," stated Charlebois. "Access is structured in ways that advantage large incumbents while sidelining small and mid-sized processors, distributors, and retailers—the very firms that tend to drive innovation, competition, and price discipline.".Charlebois adds that what the feds need to do is modernize the system.This includes making adjustments to quota administration, allocation rules, and usability — all of which "improve competition, utilization, and affordability—without increasing overall market access."However, as Charlebois mentions in the Saskatoon StarPhoenix, Carney has stated supply management will not change.Something to point out — questioning Canada's dairy sector is a reputationally fragile move, Charlebois stated, "I have seen it repeatedly — in politics, in public debate, and within academia itself."."Question supply management too openly and reputations suddenly become fragile."As Matt Strauss, Conservative MP for Kitchener South-Hespler, put it, "It is objectively insane and immoral to dump 1 billion litres of milk in a year."Charlebois adds, reforming supply management will be difficult — however, ultimately necessary.
