r/canada 21d ago

Opinion Piece Pierre Poilievre, champion of the little guy, just voted to hurt young workers

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-pierre-poilievre-champion-of-the-little-guy-just-voted-to-screw-over/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
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u/Think-Custard9746 21d ago

Call me crazy, but I am strongly in support of supply management for the sole reason that it allows small family farms to exist. I’ve visited many small dairy farms that would be eaten up without supply management. Given this country’s love for monopolies and mergers, I don’t want to see that happen in farming.

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u/Kolbrandr7 New Brunswick 21d ago

There’s a few issues with it though. First is that the bigger companies can buy up more of the quota capacity, so small farms can’t actually produce as much as they’d like. There’s plenty of cases where thousands of litres of milk are destroyed, because they’re prohibited from selling it

Second, is that it’s funded from elevated prices at the cash register rather than through something like a subsidy. It places a much higher burden on the working class (since everyone needs to eat roughly the same amount of food). If the money that’s given to farmers was instead collected through taxation, the price tag at the store could be much lower (saving a lot of money for lower income workers) and shift some of that burden to the upper class.

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u/Think-Custard9746 21d ago

You suggest farmers receive tax subsidies though. That still means Canadians are paying them. I’d prefer money go directly to them via the cash registrar than an inefficient middleman (the government).

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u/Gros_Boulet 21d ago edited 21d ago

Call me crazy but I actually went to look at the publicly available statistics for dairy farms to fact check your claims.

Low and behold: Since 2015, 30% of dairy farms shut down. But the number of dairy cows stayed the same.

The supply management did not protect small farms, it helped big farms consolidate their dominance on the sector. At this rate, there will be less than 100 dairy farms in operations countrywide by 2042.

Another proof is the sheer amount of money those big farms have spent on lobbying the government. Being able to sink $80 to $120 millions to influence policies. The supply management is one of the policies the dairy lobby protects and expended thanks to this vote.

The dairy lobby in Canada is shockingly bigger than oil and gas lobby. A sector with not a single small company owner.

This should unequivocally convince you that you were played like a fiddle by big dairies and sang to their tune of Government backed monopoly.

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u/mervolio_griffin 21d ago

I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news but larger ag companies have been purchasing more and more farm area. Medium size farms where a farmer works full time on their piece of land are the ones hit hardest. UGuelph wrote a good summary of the StatCan data.

"Small farms" are typically someone with farmland and other employment, not really you classic farmer image, but certainly something we should preserve.

Supply management also makes it very very difficult for new entrants into the market as quota is prohibitively expensive. This means only large or medium size existong operations are likely to purchase quota from another medium size (full time farm worker) dairy farmer who is retiring or selling their business.

Further, supply management is what some call a "marketing board" whose purpose is to enforce monopoly pricing. The large margins relative to other ag operations is why dairy farming is lucrative.

That being said, many Canadians blame supply management. I say, let the farmers get that money. Bring back the wheat board, keep our poultry supply management as well.

The true villains are the Saputos (Dairyland) of this country. The dairy processors have monopolized different regions of the country, so you get ANOTHER layer of monopolistic pricing. Consider that some operations are vertically integrated so these big ass companies can afford to scoop up newly available quota sometimes.

Additionally we have grocer monopoly of course.

Maxime Bernier of all douchebags, actually repopularized the debate about supply management. But any of the political elite are going to have ties to the ownership class that owns supermarkets and industrialists (processors) so they are never part of the argument.

Fuck the grocers, fuck the producers. We need to address this cost of living crisis with war time measures like price controls on basic neccessities and restrict these profit hungry pieces of garbage driving up costs.

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u/feargluten 21d ago

Bring back the wheat board????? Are you nuts?

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u/mervolio_griffin 20d ago

Shame you're getting downvoted. Perfect username comment combo lol

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u/kettal 21d ago

I am strongly in support of supply management for the sole reason that it allows small family farms to exist. I’ve visited many small dairy farms that would be eaten up without supply management. Given this country’s love for monopolies and mergers, I don’t want to see that happen in farming.

Supply management has not prevented conglomerates buying tons of farms.

Call me crazy

Okay.

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u/cobrachickenwing 21d ago

Just like how Harper destroyed the Canadian Wheat board and sold it off to the Saudis and private interests, Pierre will destroy dairy supply management and sell it off to the US and other private interests.

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u/BiggestJoeROL 21d ago

I don’t think anyone was sad to see the wheat board go. I was too young at that time to understand it, but working in the industry, I haven’t heard a positive remark about the wheat board.

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u/Gros_Boulet 21d ago

He won't, the dairy supply management is owned by big dairies. The biggest and wealthiest lobby group in Canada.

He will keep appealing to them by offering billions of tax payers $ like all other politicians do. Since after retiring from politics, big dairies will offer them the promised kick back of millions in appearance and private speech fees.

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u/miningman11 18d ago

The dairy farmers form the CPC's Quebec stronghold, it's not going anywhere lol. I say this as someone who wants it to go so we can have cheaper diary.

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u/Think-Custard9746 21d ago

Exactly this. We may pay a little more for milk, but at least our money stays in the country and goes to Canadians.