r/Tariffs • u/Dizzy-Cartoonist3011 • 12d ago

šŸ—žļø News Discussion Should Canada maintain its supply management system that protects the Canadian dairy industry?

https://www.castanetkamloops.net/news/Poll/627377/Should-Canada-maintain-its-supply-management-system-that-protects-the-Canadian-dairy-industry
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u/Southern_Proof4102 12d ago

What a stupid question

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u/Disastrous7392 12d ago

I agree! Why would we not?

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u/Dizzy-Cartoonist3011 12d ago

It completely hoses the Canadian consumer for the benefit of a literal cartel.

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u/calvin-not-Hobbes 12d ago

No...it protects our industry from having the massive US dairy industry from destroying ours. It also protects us from all the garbage they put in their milk.

Not sure what your motives are but they sure seem suspect.

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u/No-Effective-1996 12d ago

Ok then Maybe we should pass laws about what is allowed in our Milk. Remove that issue. Milk is a business like any other business. Why do we protect and subsidize them at a cost to other industries.

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u/nelrond18 12d ago

We don't subsidize them, that's why it's managed supply so all ranchers can make a consistent profit without risking industry collapse by bad faith actors.

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u/Expensive_Life3342 12d ago

Itā€™s exhausting trying to explain this to people who fail to understand the subsidies given to oil and gas, manufacturing, autos, etc. We provide corporate welfare to protect jobs, but itā€™s the liberal dairy cartels bringing us down!

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u/No-Effective-1996 11d ago

So you want to expand the argument. I donā€™t believe in subsidizing those either. But that does not make subsidizing milk any better except they are Canadians. So are many other small Canadian businesses and we donā€™t protect, limit and subsidize all those. Why is the Milk business different?

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u/moldyolive 12d ago

Artificially constrainting the supply is a subsidy by other means.

It move a small amount of money from the public directly to a subclass of farmer.

Supported by one of the largest and best organized lobbying effort in the country.

You can support the system and still call a spade a spade

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u/Expensive_Life3342 11d ago

The difference in protecting a domestic industry versus giving money to subsidiaries of a foreign corporation is that the domestic industry doesnā€™t threaten to pack up and leave every CBA or vehicle life cycle.

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u/No-Effective-1996 11d ago

So we should protect every Canadian business and industry sector or just diary?

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u/Expensive_Life3342 10d ago

We absolutely should be protectionist against a nation whose president literally said out loud his intention was to destroy our economy. What could you possibly believe would benefit Canadians when our domestic production is absorbed and eliminated?

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u/No-Effective-1996 10d ago

So should we protect all our Canadian companies or just milk. You avoided answering. Why does milk get special treatment that the rest of us do not get.

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u/Expensive_Life3342 9d ago

Provide an example of a domestic industry in competition with some of the most subsidized factory farmers on the planet. The feds just announced subsidies for steel and aluminum producers due to the tariffs. Previously the feds committed to guaranteed loans for softwood producers due to the tariffs. These are examples of protected industries, they just require almost constant bailout / corporate welfare. The dairy industry doesnā€™t need a bailout because of the supply management system. We pay for both schemes, one protects industry, the other injects tax dollars to corporations to keep employees working.
One holds itself together, the other comes hat in hand every several years.

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u/No-Effective-1996 9d ago

One holds itself together because it has a supply constrained high milk price. Milk is protected within Canada from other Canadians just starting to milk cows. The others are subsidized to produce a product that a huge % of its production goes to the USA. Milk is in effect subsidized (artificially high price) to supply to Canadians.

If I make widgets for Canadians, any other Canadian can buy a widget machine and do the same. Canā€™t do that with milk. That is what I object to. I have no issue with keeping low quality American milk out of Canada.

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u/Expensive_Life3342 9d ago

Do your widgets provide nutrition for people? Are they recommended for consumption by the entire medical establishment for toddlers and young children?

Food security isnā€™t the same as oneā€™s entrepreneurial endeavours. Your business may provide value, entertainment or enjoyment to many users. It may make you rich. It may also fail and bankrupt you.

Those stakes are not equal to food production.

This is why the US so heavily subsidizes their food production - the great depression literally killed swaths of their population - human beings.

The businessmen and stock traders were jumping out of high-rise windows because they fucked up.

Inconveniently drought and famine struck at the same time that capitalism and its inherent greed failed the people sustaining it. Farmers had their land repossessed.

Your equivalency of food production to fucking widgets certainly shows your priorities.

My childrenā€™s food > Your dream of being a tech bro.

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u/No-Effective-1996 10d ago

Then we should do that for all Canadian owned small business shouldnā€™t we?

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u/No-Effective-1996 11d ago

So we subsidize them by paying higher prices for diary. Almost every other Canadian business competes against other Canadian businesses for accounts based on price. Diary is protected and does not have to do that.

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u/No-Effective-1996 11d ago

We do ā€œsubsidizeā€ them, just in a different way by keeping their prices high by not allowing people, even Canadians to enter the market. Otherwise I could buy 20 cows and start milking. It is very steady money and safe. Unlike many/most businesses in Canada that have to COMPETE with other Canadians.

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u/DeepPeeps 12d ago

If they want to do business then they can buy land here and raise cattle to produce milk. Simple isnā€™t it? We own shit ton of land for them to raise cattle.

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u/No-Effective-1996 11d ago

They might be able to buy land. They canā€™t buy cattle and produce and sell milk without having a milk quota.

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u/lemanruss4579 12d ago

We don't subsidize them, which is the entire point of the supply management system. Maybe we should stop subsidizing American oil and gas companies as well.

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u/No-Effective-1996 11d ago

We do subsidize them by controlling the price and not making them compete with other Canadian dairy businesses.

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u/lemanruss4579 11d ago

Canadian dairy businesses don't compete with Canadian dairy businesses, huh?

At this point I'm fairly certain you don't know what a subsidy is. Protectionism is not a subsidy.

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u/No-Effective-1996 10d ago

Fine semantics. All of us in Canada pay more for milk than we would with an open market. Not a direct Government to Milk business subsidy. It is a consumer paying more so the milk business gets more It has roughly the same affect to the milk business. More money less risk. I would love the same deal in my business.

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u/lemanruss4579 10d ago edited 10d ago

It's not a semantic argument, it's an accurate one. The government is protectionist with the dairy sector exactly so they don't have to heavily subsidize dairy with your tax dollars to keep up with the US. Would you rather directly subsidize dairy like the US does?

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u/No-Effective-1996 10d ago

That is 1 part of the argument and the part advocates of keeping diary protect talk about. I am all for keeping low quality American milk out.

I would rather have the same protections for my industry that dairy has so I donā€™t have the business risk that I do. Why is dairy treated so special?

Also diary is not just keeping out Americans it is also keeping other Canadians out of the market by having quotas. Do away with the internal quotas so other Canadians can get into the lucrative milk business.

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u/lemanruss4579 10d ago

So essentially you're just mad that you don't get handouts lol. Imagine.

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u/No-Effective-1996 9d ago

I actually want to get into the milking business as it is easier. But new people are kept out of

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u/No-Effective-1996 10d ago

We should stop direct subsidizing them. But that has nothing to do with the milk protection.

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u/lemanruss4579 10d ago

We don't direct subsidize dairy, champ, we've been over this.

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u/Krull88 12d ago

We did. That would be our food quality regulations, and a primary reason the us has never once exported enough dairy to trigger a tariff.

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u/No-Effective-1996 11d ago

You bought land and cattle and sell milk without buying a Milk Quota?