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Monday October 24, 2011

 
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Dairy Supply Management

As the Harper government moves forward on its plan to dismantle the Canada Wheat Board, the country's Restaurant and Food Services Association is saying - Why end the push for free markets there? It says the Supply Management System that controls the milk and milk products we buy is gouging consumers. It wants to see Ottawa dismantle the multi-billion-dollar system that sets milk prices and dairy quotas.

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Part Two of The Current

Dairy Supply Management - Garth Whyte/Ron Versteeg

We started this segment with a clip from Doug Peart. He remembers when there were 300 dairy farms in his county -- now there are around 70. Farming has never been an easy way to make a living, but dairy farmers in Ontario and other provinces say they have been able to survive in part thanks to a system of government supply management.

For about 40 years, the federal government has set a fixed price for their product, a quota for how much they would produce and a limit on the amount of foreign milk imported into the country. Those policies were intended to stabilize and support an industry that Doug Peart says isn't exactly making anyone rich.

Dairy farmers such as Doug Peart worry their lives could get more difficult if a group agitating to get rid of Canada's dairy supply management system gets its way. The Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association says the system gouges customers, and has set up a website - freeyourmilk.ca - with an online petition, asking consumers to demand a new way of doing business. The group's timing comes on the heels of the Harper government introducing a bill that would effectively dismantle another agricultural management system - the Wheat Board.

Garth Whyte is the President of The Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association and he was in Toronto. And Ron Versteeg is the Vice President of the Dairy Farmers of Canada. He was with us in Toronto as well.

We did request an interview with Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz to get the government's take on this issue, but the minister's office never got back to us.

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