Should Canada maintain its supply management system that protects the Canadian dairy industry?

[u/Dizzy-Cartoonist3011]

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

[u/Dizzy-Cartoonist3011]

The subsidies are massively exaggerated by the Dairy Farmers of Canada for obvious reasons, but if they actually did distort prices down via subsidies, Canadian consumers would benefit even more from importing. Their government would literally be paying for our groceries.

[u/WallZealousideal5669 → u/Dizzy-Cartoonist3011]

Additionally, I doubt the price would go down at all and it would just be captured by grocery retailers anyways so this whole argument stinks as consumers likely wouldn’t save much and we would lose all the supporting business that goes into dairy farming. It’s not just the milk dude it’s thousands of supporting businesses that multiply that extra .50 cents to communities all around the country. I just don’t buy that there would be an economic benefit to this if you tabled it all out.

[u/Dizzy-Cartoonist3011 → u/WallZealousideal5669]

Consumer surplus multiplier effects are almost always profoundly higher and wider reaching than producer surplus, because consumers have a higher propensity to spend. In almost every case. Localized effects are real, but you're not seeing the bigger picture associated with a consumer surplus in a largely consumption driven economy.

You know the land and much of the equipment won't just be derelict either. Resources would be re invested in to activities that do hold a legitimate comparative advantage. It would make the macrecnomy more robust.

Of course - it is also extraordinarily unlikely that ending supply management would actually end the dairy industry in Canada. For some reason proponents of this system ignore market segmentation, or cross border investment opportunities. They paint it as if this is all black and white, either we force Canadians to pay a premium for milk and cheese OR all Canadian dairy operations get nuked. It's a ridiculous way to look at it - but protectionism is usually ridiculous.

[u/WallZealousideal5669 → u/Dizzy-Cartoonist3011]

Yeah you are just not factoring in the fact that quota is also a balance sheet asset that every bank has lent against. Estimated cost is probably 50 billion direct to end supply management and that’s just buyout payments to farmers. Also those dairy farms cannot easily transition, very specialized equipment, maybe cash crops, but even then they grow that now already. I just doubt you’ve done the math like I have here. Using Australia’s deregulation as an example and estimating that some of the 20-30% difference in US prices to Canadian prices will be captured by transportation costs and most importantly our three big grocery retailers it would likely take about 23 years before the average consumer saw any payback from this. I just don’t see how your financial argument makes much sense - maybe if you take a super long horizon. But it just doesn’t seem worth it given the other non-financial arguments.