Important to know what we're talking about - even if the loudest voices are   
   from the right wing stupids.   Note, especially, the last two paragraphs - and   
   then you realize just how much of a hypocrite - on top of being a liar - Trump   
   is.   
   _______________________________   
   CBC News · Posted: Jun 16, 2018   
      
   How Canada's supply management system works   
      
   It's been blamed for inflating food prices - but a lot of American producers   
   wish they had something like it   
      
      
   Canada's system of supply management has been the target of heated political   
   debate for the better part of half a century — but very few Canadians   
   outside of the affected farm sectors actually understand how it works, or who   
   foots the bill for    
   stabilizing farmers' incomes.   
      
   Supply management is a system that allows specific commodity sectors —   
   dairy, poultry and eggs — to limit the supply of their products to what   
   Canadians are expected to consume in order to ensure predictable, stable   
   prices.   
      
   While the federal government has played a role in supporting agricultural   
   pricing policies for more than a century, the current system of supply   
   management traces its origins to the 1960s — a period of overproduction due   
   to technological advances that    
   resulted in low prices for farmers.   
      
   While the federal government was keen to support farmers' incomes — and the   
   votes that come with them — direct financial supports became too heavy a   
   burden for the federal treasury to bear.   
      
   Bruce Muirhead, a historian at the University of Waterloo who has written   
   extensively about supply management, said the government of the day felt that   
   $50-55 million in annual support payments "would seriously upset the balance   
   of the budget."   
      
   "This is one of the reasons we moved to a supply-managed system — government   
   wanted to make farming sustainable on its own," Muirhead writes in his   
   research paper 'Crying Over Spilt Milk'.   
      
   The United States, in contrast, has largely maintained support for the farming   
   sector through subsidies. So Americans foot the bill for farm supports   
   indirectly, through the taxes they pay, while Canadians pay for those supports   
   directly, through higher    
   prices for supply-managed products.   
      
   According to a Library of Parliament study of supply management, the system   
   rests on three pillars: production control, pricing mechanisms and import   
   control.   
      
   First pillar: quotas   
      
   Under supply management, a national marketing agency determines production   
   amounts for each commodity and then sets production quotas for each province.   
      
   In order to sell their products, a farmer must hold a quota — basically a   
   license to produce up to a set amount. The quota prevent market gluts that   
   would cause prices to dip and disrupt farm incomes.   
      
   As of 2015, there were just over 16,000 quota holders in Canada — most of   
   them dairy farmers in Ontario and Quebec.  The quotas initially were given   
   away for free but quickly became quite valuable; Canada's total quota is now   
   valued at over $32 billion.   
      
   Muirhead told CBC News that while U.S. President Donald Trump has pushed   
   Canada to dismantle the system to help U.S. farmers, many dairy farmers south   
   of the border look at Canada's system of supply management with envy.   
      
   He said Wisconsin farmers in particular are beset by production issues that   
   have caused prices to tank; the state has more cows than all of Canada and   
   produces more milk.   
      
   "Those guys are massively in favour of supply management.  It would stabilize   
   their industry," he said.   
      
      
   Second pillar: minimum prices   
      
   Supply-managed producers are guaranteed a minimum price for their products.   
   Through provincial marketing boards, farmers negotiate minimum "farm gate   
   prices" with processors.   
      
   Critics maintain that Canadians pay too much for supply-managed products   
   because the system inflates prices beyond what an open market would impose in   
   order to keep farmers afloat.   
      
   But not everyone agrees — and the research is by no means unanimous in its   
   conclusions.   
      
   In 2014, a Nielsen Company study commissioned by the Dairy Farmers of Canada   
   showed that the price of Canadian dairy products compared favourably with   
   prices in other countries.   
      
   The Montreal Economic Institute, a centre-right think tank, maintains that   
   millions of Canadians are paying artificially high prices to benefit a few   
   thousand farmers. A recent University of Manitoba study concluded that supply   
   management costs wealthy    
   families an average of $554 a year, with lower income families facing an   
   average bill of more than $339 a year as a result of the policy.   
      
   "Supply management hurts all 35 million Canadian consumers by forcing them to   
   pay consistently more for milk, chicken and eggs, as well as for other   
   products that use these foodstuffs as ingredients," the institute wrote in a   
   recent report on the matter.    
   "Importantly, supply management disproportionately hurts poor Canadians."   
      
   Former Conservative leadership candidate Maxime Bernier, who nearly bested   
   Andrew Scheer in the party's leadership contest last year, has become one of   
   the country's most vocal opponents of supply management.   
      
   "The worst aspect of supply management, however, isn't that all Canadians who   
   buy these products must pay more.  It's that the poor, and households with   
   children, are affected the most," Bernier wrote in a chapter from his   
   forthcoming book.   
      
   "It should be clear that this is a transfer of wealth from the poorest to some   
   of the richest in our society.  Farming families working under supply   
   management are indeed far richer than most Canadian families. A verage   
   after-tax income of all households    
   in Canada is $69,100.  By comparison, the average dairy farming household   
   income is $147,800, and the number is $180,400 for poultry-farming households."   
      
   But dairy farmers point to retail prices for milk in jurisdictions that have   
   deregulated their dairy industries, like the United Kingdom and Australia, as   
   proof that supply management strikes the right balance.   
      
   In Australia, for example, prices for milk in the major cities rose 27 cents   
   per litre in the three years after deregulation.   
      
   In New Zealand, the largest dairy exporting country in the world, milk prices   
   are higher than they are here in Canada.   
      
      
   Third pillar: high tariffs   
      
   The third pillar of supply management is the imposition of high tariffs on   
   foreign imports, a policy that makes these goods prohibitively expensive for   
   Canadians, leaving domestic supply as virtually the only option for consumers.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)