Supply Management Bill Before the Senate

Hands Off Canada's Supply Management! Stand with Canadian and Quebec Farmers!

Dairy farmers' protest, Montreal, September 6, 2018 during renegotiation to replace NAFTA

Certain cartel politicians, U.S. officials, non-governmental organizations and monopoly-controlled media, have broadened their attack on Canada's right to control its own agricultural system. The Quebec and Ontario dairy, poultry, and egg sector is one of the last vestiges of a Canadian economy independent of U.S. imperialist control.

The Canadian economy since World War II has little by little been integrated into the U.S. war economy and is not serving the Canadian people, whose demand is that it to be independent and self-reliant. This integration has occurred despite Canada having abundant resources, a vast land base and an educated and skilled working class capable of building and manufacturing whatever is needed. Canada's people and resources -- minerals, oil, gas, wood, agricultural land, and fresh water -- are precisely a target of U.S. imperialism and its huge military and endless wars.

The dairy, poultry and egg sector still serves the farmers, the Canadian and Quebec economy and peoples more generally as it has so far resisted the waves of U.S.-led global assaults to dominate it. This has been accomplished with farmers' resistance and support of the working class in waging a determined struggle to retain what is called "supply management."

Controlling the supply of produce allows Canadian and Quebec dairy, poultry, and egg producers an element of power over how much produce is produced, thus keeping its quantity in line with demand. This in turn allows the market price to remain near farmers' price of production. The monopolies often use market price manipulation to force small producers into a situation where they receive a price lower than their price of production. This bankrupting and monopoly takeover by the rich concentrates ownership of the economy in fewer hands that become richer and more powerful.

Supply management also allows a gradual less chaotic introduction of modern production methods to improve productivity without unduly harming farmers' well-being and the survival of their local communities. The supply management system of regulations has become an important defence against U.S. farming cartels and global financial oligarchs seizing control of the sector as they have done in the U.S. There, monopoly interests have become dominant, wiping out most small and medium-sized farming operations.

Supply management in Canada and Quebec has allowed local dairy, poultry and egg farmers, suppliers, and their communities to survive, although not without difficulty and some loss. This is mainly due to factors such as mounting debt, the general rise in land prices throughout the country, and the difficulties involved in the transfer of farm enterprises from one generation to the next.

U.S. monopolies control that country's dairy, poultry and egg sector. They have long demanded that Canada and Quebec "open up" the sector to allow those same monopolies and global financial interests to seize control of Canada and Quebec's production, distribution and pricing of these foods.

The aim of their demand that supply management be eliminated is to turn the sector into yet another avenue of maximum profit for the private investors in the cartels. The owners of these cartels likely have little or no connection to agriculture or the lives of people in the farming communities. Their "opening up" of the sector through the elimination of supply management would quite quickly result in the takeover of most Canadian and Quebec dairy, poultry and egg small and medium-sized farms, their local suppliers, and distributors. This would destroy the viability of their communities and force the displaced families to seek work in the densely populated cities.

It is important to oppose what the government of Canada is doing under the guise of high ideals. All of this has been going on since before Trump. It shows that the back and forth between Trump and Trudeau and various officials of both countries is intended to divert the attention of Canadians from what is really going on as concerns the unacceptable integration of Canada into the U.S. economy, against the interests of the peoples of both countries.

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This article was published in

Volume 54 Number 11 - November 2024

Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2024/Articles/M540115.HTM

Website:  www.cpcml.ca   Email:  editor@cpcml.ca