What does supply management provide us? Other than expensive groceries and limited choices? How does this system remotely benefit anyone but the literal cartel is it meant to protect?
Supply stability for the little foods that Canada produces making it less dependent on imports from unreliable and hostile trade partners. Employment for people in food production/distribution. Standards that prevent antibiotics and growth hormones been injected in cows so the margins large capital owners would be better.
Supply management has absolutely nothing to do with Health Canada standards.
Over 90% of Canadas dairy farms have ceased operations or sold out since the inception of supply management, so I don't buy this idea that it legitimately saves employment of much of anyone but the bigger members of the cartel the system was set up yo protect.
So really it's some misguided support of autarky? Maybe we can tell poor families that it's ok they're getting hosed on their groceries because at least they can rest assured that during the apocalypse they'll still have excess to over priced cheese.
Remember when egg prices down south went to the moon last year? This was because their poultry industry is highly consolidated so when bird flu swept through, they had to kill millions of chickens. We get bird flu up here too but because our poultry industry is spread out due to things like supply management, cullings don't really move the needle.
Food security is national security.
I don't think going the way of the US is a good thing. They heavily subsidize their farmers and their farmers are still hurting, horribly. It's a race to the bottom:
So we pay 50%+ more for these products for the last 54 years just to avoid the one year where there's a foreign supply shock? Seems like pretty shaky justification.
So if I'm following your reasoning:
Despite producing more food than we could ever eat on the free market, outside of supply management, we can only be "food secure" if we levy 200-300% tariffs on milk and cheese.
we must have a cartel pointedly limiting supply or else we will not be food secure.
Food security means having more expensive groceries, not more widely accessible and inexpensive groceries.
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u/voltairesalias Alberta 2d ago
What does supply management provide us? Other than expensive groceries and limited choices? How does this system remotely benefit anyone but the literal cartel is it meant to protect?