A system has never seemed so completely backwards to me as does Sully Management. Here is a system that wholly and completely insures that Canadians will pay more for the key staples of their diets: poultry, dairy and egg products. This system drives up the prices of these staple foods some two to three times. It’s in place because, as defenders say, it protects producers by maintaining a steady price and not subjecting producers to the risk of the market system.
I’m sorry, but I have little sympathy for the various wealthy agri-corporations when I know people are struggling to feed themselves and their families.
It takes a bold politician to face down supply management and it looks like we’ve found one in former Liberal Party MP Martha Hall Findlay. Her column on supply management has already received rave reviews from the likes of Andrew Coyne (whose head virtually explodes with the mere mention of Supply Management) and has resulted in her ideas getting lots of press coverage(Coyne here, Ottawa Citizen here and Natty Po here). Her column also seems to be a jump off point for her eventual run at the leadership of the Liberal Party.
I welcome this debate, as I also welcomed the debate on the Dutch Disease. It seems that Canada has turned a corner and we are starting to discuss real issues in a broad and thoughtful manner.
Let’s hope this continues.
I want to leave you with a final thought from Andrew Coyne’s article
If you cannot bring yourself to say it is wrong to make poor families pay three times the market price of milk to prop up a handful of wealthy farmers, you are not in the business of serious politics.
