Recent months have seen the fate of Bill 282 in the Canadian Senate become a political football particularly with ultimatums by the Bloc Quebecois (BQ). It was originally seen as an obscure federal Bill designed to stifle any consideration of supply management (SM) during trade treaty discussions. The Bill was instigated by the powerful Quebec-dominated milk producers lobby machine. Their political power was displayed when the Bill received all-party support in the House of Commons and sent to the Senate, where it was presumed to be rubber-stamped by the Liberal Party-controlled chamber. Trade lobbyists from export-oriented commodity groups warned that the Bill could negatively affect trade negotiations by tying Canadian negotiators’ hands. Worse yet, the Bill would see even more trade concessions/restrictions on non-supply management farm products. However, the Bill was not taken seriously as politicians suspected that a new Conservative government would probably rescind the Bill. What was not expected was that the BQ would bring inconvenient publicity to the Bill by their ultimatum to the federal Liberal government.
That ultimatum included that Bill 282 be immediately passed by the Senate by the end of October. However, the minority Trudeau government was not willing to appear weak to the Bloc’s ransom demand, and besides, it has compliant support from their NDP partner for political survival. That saw the Liberal leader in the Senate introduce an amendment that would effectively neuter the Bill. That amendment prevented the Bill from being used in any existing free trade deals or any renegotiation. Ironically, by using Bill 282 as part of their futile ransom demand, the BQ probably wrecked the Bill much sooner than had been anticipated. The big bad dairy lobby must be choking on its own pretentiousness. That’s much needed to cut their overbearing attitude down to size. If the Bill is sent back to the House of Commons to pass the amendment, it is expected to die either by filibuster or by time running out before the next election.
The impact of the Bill on trade negotiations was further brought to light by the re-election of President Trump. His past administration had targeted dairy supply management as a primary trade irritant in the CUSMA free trade agreement negotiations. The US was appeased by giving them more dairy product access to the Canadian market. The dairy lobby used that concession to instigate Bill 282. The rumour mill is spreading that dairy supply management will be the number one target for Trump trade officials when CUSMA is renegotiated in 2026. It will be hard for the Canadian government to resist that pressure, particularly since it involves a very small voting base – dairy farmers. There really is only one way to come to grips with the inevitable – reform dairy supply management and do it now! That would be an unwelcome approach by the dairy lobby as it would impact their Quebec and Maritime base the most. Bill 282 was, in essence, designed to thwart any reform of supply management by protecting it even more from any competition.
I have said it before that the answer to US, EU, and New Zealand dairy imports competition within free trade agreements is to produce milk cheaper than our foreign competitors. That cannot be done as long as four thousand 80 head Quebec dairy farms are protected by supply management. But it can be done if 2,000 head dairy farms are allowed to be established in the prairie provinces. In a previous column, I cited large-scale commercial dairy farms in Idaho as the obvious example. To deal with US trade demands for more dairy product access or the curtailment of dairy supply management is to fight fire with fire. That is, allow our dairy farmers in western Canada to compete on the same level field as those large-scale milk producers in Idaho. To most, that would seem like common sense – especially if it would also see lower-cost dairy products for Canadian consumers.
But alas, even contemplating reforming dairy supply management is a declaration of war by the Quebec-dominated dairy lobby. They would unleash their fearsome cross-Canada lobby machine on every level of government and relentlessly fearmonger naive consumers. However, with the unwelcome publicity surrounding Bill 282, I feel dairy supply management is (finally) politically vulnerable and could be pushed into reform by, say, a couple of free enterprise governments (hello, Alberta and Saskatchewan). I look forward to common sense breaking out – it’s time.
Will Verboven is an ag opinion writer.
