We are about to see just how much economic damage the federal government is willing to inflict upon Canadians to protect the Soviet style supply management system. President Donald Trump has put Canada’s dairy, poultry and egg supply management on the hit list and citizens will be paying a high price to keep it.It’s not as if Canadians aren’t already paying a high price to protect the food production cartels of the country. Items such as cheese, milk, butter, chicken and eggs cost families as much as 25% more than they should because prices are fixed through the industry cartels while massive tariffs are imposed on imported goods. It’s a slap in the face to consumers struggling under high grocery bills.It is literally illegal to produce or sell milk and other products without a government issued quota under this terrible system. If a producer makes more food than they are allotted, they must dump it down the drain. People were shocked when an Ontario farmer released a video showing him pouring tens of thousands of litres of milk down the drain in his operation. The cartels acted quickly. The video was pulled and the farmer vanished from the public eye and won’t do interviews. He will likely have his licenses pulled if he acts up again..Greedy dairy producers would rather see food go to waste than let citizens have a break on the price.While Canadians are suffering from food inflation, over 7 billion litres of milk were dumped and destroyed in the nine years between 2012 and 2021 to ensure prices remain high to protect the dwindling number of dairy producers. This should be a crime. In fact, if this sort of collusion and price fixing was done in any other industry, it would be a crime. Yes, the producers are dwindling. Despite the lie propagated by supply management defenders that the system protects family farms, it does the opposite. In the 1970s, Canada had 140,000 dairy farms. Now there are fewer than 9,200 of them. Only large operations can afford to purchase the quotas and they have been predatorily buying them up for years. Small operations have been squeezed out.The penalties for running afoul of the supply management policies are harsh and quickly enforced. While violent, gun-running, repeat offenders are released on bail regularly, an older man who committed the crime of selling eggs without a quota had five RCMP cruisers show up on his doorstep, and he was jailed for days..Now on top of all the social and economic damage caused in Canada by the supply management system, the policies could cost the nation untold billions in trade as Trump increases tariffs on Canadian goods in response to the system.Team Carney went elbows-down quickly enough when Trump demanded an end to the digital streaming tax, but they have dug their heels in when it comes to supply management. Indeed, even several cowardly Conservative MPs voted in favour of a Bloc Québécois bill entrenching protection for supply management.So, if supply management is such a terrible policy, why does the government fight so hard to keep it? The hint was in who sponsored the bill to protect it; the Bloc Québécois. .Canada’s dairy industry is disproportionately represented by Quebec. A quarter of Canada’s dairy production comes from Quebec and the quotas keep moving there. Meanwhile, prairie provinces with massive agricultural industries can’t diversify further into dairy, eggs or poultry due to quota limitations. It’s just one more way the East is screwing the West in Canada. Equalization is just the easier one to see.It's hard to say if anything will pacify Trump. He seems to be determined to carry out a trade war no matter what Canada does. The nation could capitulate to every demand and Trump might still imposed heavy tariffs.There’s little sense giving Trump low hanging fruit to attack when he tries to leverage more from Canada on trade issues.Canada’s federal government has made supply management a hill to die on with the participation of all parties.A high price to pay for a small number of well-heeled dairy operations in Quebec.
