Terry Burton is a retired veteran of Alberta’s oil and heavy construction industry, and a former member of the Alberta Apprenticeship Board.Canada’s supply management system for dairy, eggs, and poultry has become a political irritant, an economic lightning rod, and a recurring obstacle in our trade relationship with the United States. For free-market conservatives, it is an obvious target: production quotas, price controls, and import restrictions offend basic principles of competition and consumer choice. For others, it is a necessary safeguard — one of the last policy tools ensuring Canada can feed itself in an increasingly unstable world.Both arguments have merit. And that is precisely why the debate has stagnated..MACLEOD: Independence without chaos.On the one hand, supply management is undeniably costly. Canadians pay higher prices at the grocery store — estimated at roughly $500 per household annually, or more than $7.5 billion nationwide. The system limits production, restricts innovation, and entrenches incumbency by transforming quotas into multi-million-dollar assets. Young farmers face steep barriers to entry, while consumers shoulder a regressive, hidden tax.From a conservative economic perspective, these outcomes are hard to defend. Markets allocate resources more efficiently than governments. Competition drives productivity. Artificial scarcity benefits producers at the expense of the public. Worse, supply management has repeatedly complicated trade negotiations with the United States, forcing Canada to concede ground in other sectors to preserve a politically sensitive system concentrated in Ontario and Quebec.If the story ended there, the case for dismantling supply management would be straightforward.But it does not..Food is not just another consumer good. It is a strategic necessity. A nation that cannot reliably feed itself is exposed — economically, politically, and socially. Conservatives have long argued that sovereignty requires self-reliance in critical domains, whether defense, energy, or essential infrastructure. Food belongs firmly on that list.Recent experience should have erased any lingering complacency. Canada has learned — often painfully — that trade relationships are governed by interests, not goodwill. Tariffs imposed by our closest ally were not driven by fairness or reciprocity, but by domestic political calculation. Loyalty offered no protection. As Lord Palmerston observed nearly two centuries ago, nations have no permanent friends, only permanent interests.In that environment, deliberately dismantling domestic food production capacity would be an act of strategic carelessness.Supporters of supply management argue that the system provides insurance: stable domestic production, predictable supply, and insulation from global shocks. They are not wrong to value resilience. Global supply chains are fragile. Weather events, disease outbreaks, geopolitical conflicts, and trade disputes can disrupt food flows quickly. A country that has hollowed out its domestic agriculture has few options when that happens..BEST: Cost of disowning a legacy — why Carney and Wuttunee’s children are getting indigenous politics wrong.Yet here, too, the argument has limits.True food security does not require rigid protectionism. It requires adaptability, scale, and diversification. Canada already imports large volumes of food — and that diversification enhances resilience rather than undermining it. Grain, beef, pork, and produce sectors operate without supply management and still supply domestic needs while competing globally. There is no inherent reason dairy, eggs, and poultry could not do the same.Indeed, supply management may undermine resilience by capping output and discouraging investment. A system that limits production cannot easily surge in response to shortages. A competitive, open system — with multiple suppliers and export capacity — may be better equipped to absorb shocks than one constrained by quotas.This brings us to the heart of the dilemma: efficiency versus insurance.Supply management delivers insurance, but at high and poorly targeted cost. Free markets deliver efficiently, but without guarantees. Conservatives should reject the false choice between the two..Canada does not need to preserve supply management exactly as it exists, nor does it need to dismantle it recklessly to satisfy trade partners. What is required is deliberate reform grounded in national interest rather than electoral convenience.That means acknowledging consumer costs honestly. It means modernizing quotas, expanding market access, and lowering barriers to entry over time. It means compensating quota holders transparently rather than protecting asset values indefinitely through regulation. And it means retaining sufficient domestic capacity to ensure that, in extremis, Canadians are not dependent on foreign governments for basic foodstuffs.Policy consistency matters as well. Governments routinely justify subsidies and procurement preferences for shipbuilding, energy, batteries, and manufacturing on strategic grounds. If domestic capacity is worth protecting in those sectors, it cannot be dismissed as illegitimate when applied to food. .MARTYN: No apologies. Canada was built, not stolen.The question is not whether protection exists, but whether it is proportionate, transparent, and time-limited.Canada’s mistake has been treating supply management as politically untouchable rather than strategically adjustable.Free trade remains essential to Canada’s prosperity. But free trade divorced from resilience is not conservative — it is naïve. Equally, protectionism that ignores consumer costs and market realities is not prudence — it is inertia.The path forward lies between these extremes. Reform supply management. Do not fetishize it. Do not abolish it blindly. Preserve domestic food security while restoring market discipline and trade credibility.In an age of uncertainty, conservatism’s greatest strength is balance. Canada’s food policy should reflect it.Terry Burton is a retired veteran of Alberta’s oil and heavy construction industry, and a former member of the Alberta Apprenticeship Board.
