Letters to the Globe: Supply Management

Canada's system of supply management, which protects farmers and smooths out prices in the egg, dairy, and poultry industries, has been the subject of considerable recent controversy. It keeps prices artificially high. It's not equitable; the majority of Canadian farmers do not enjoy the protection of supply management. And, as recent Order of Canada recipient and former civil servant Don Campbell pointed out recently on CBC Radio (The Current, July 10), it's bad for the economy as a whole:

We are a pariah on the international scene. This is not just a United States issue. This is an issue with the Europeans, it's an issue with the Australians, it’s an issue with the New Zealanders, it’s an issue with everyone. And what we are prevented from doing by virtue of our system [is] exporting. Canada should be one of the top three dairy product exporters in the world. Instead, we're comfortable in a declining market in Canada. We're now down to less than 10,000 dairy farmers. There were 140,000 dairy farmers in 1940. I remember a long time ago, the Canadian head of the National Retail Council said, do you realize there are more bureaucrats involved in supply management than there are farmers? And I think there's a certain truth to that.

The main issue here for people like me is of course the way in which the animals who are at the heart of these industries are treated--and to my mind, any solution to the problems must involve addressing the issue of cruelty to animals.

I have long argued that removing supply management and instituting much higher cruelty-to-animals and environmental standards in Canada would lead not just to better conditions for the animals but also to indutries that were economically healthier. Animal-cruelty and environmental legislation for farms in the USA tends to be even more lax than it is in Canada, but there are many consumers in the US who are willing to pay more for eggs, poultry and dairy products that are produced with less cruelty and less harm to the environment. Demand for free-range eggs in the US, for example, far exceeds the supply. If all the egg, poultry, and dairy products produced in Canada had to meet a higher standard, we would surely be able to export more Canadan-produced products, while the US industry would be unable to meet the standards required in Canada, and thus unable to flood our market with cheaper products. The current high prices could be maintained, but the animals as well as the farmers would be receiving some protection. (If it were deemed that abandoning supply management would increase the cost of living for low-income Canadians, a "protein income supplement" could be introduced as an amount added to current payments to low-income Canadians. If so, however, it should be made clear that the supplement could also be used to buy tofu or "Impossible" burgers or vegan "cheeze" or vegan ice "cream" or oat milk. And the change could (and should) be accomoanied by a campaign aiming to make more people aware of the availability of other, reasonably priced protein-rich products (chick peas, lentils, kidney beans, etc.).

In any case, here are the letters on this issue I've been sending recently:

Re “Sacred Cow” (April 4): Gordon Pitts makes it sound as if New Zealand’s dairy industry is largely unregulated, and that climate is the key to the industry’s success: But it’s not climate that ensures New Zealand cows’ welfare. It’s legislation—legislation that sets higher animal welfare standards than anywhere else in the world (among many other things, requiring dairy farms to provide cows with shelter from the elements—yes, even in New Zealand there is inclement weather).

If Canada ever does decide to move away from supply management and encourage an “export mentality” for the dairy industry, we would be wise before doing so to ensure that Canadian cows are treated at least as well as those in New Zealand. People will pay more for dairy products from a country that they know enforces high safety and animal welfare standards.

Re “How to crack open Canada’s egg market” (June 21): No mention is made in this long editorial of the central fact about egg production: the eggs that humans eat are made not by industrial machines but by living creatures—birds that are horrifically treated throughout their short lives in almost all commercial egg operations, in Canada as in the United States. A humane set of policies regarding egg production would require all eggs sold in Canada to come from farms where egg-laying birds are truly treated well. But the notion that cruelty to animals should be addressed seems not to have occurred either to our federal or our provincial governments, any more than it has to the industry.

Re “We must protect supply management from the trade war” (July 16): The authors are appropriately sensitive to the plight of farmers, arguing rightly that, if we do abandon supply management, we should be prepared to help those farmers who find they cannot compete, so that they can “make new lives.” Yet the authors express no sensitivity whatsoever to the plight of the non-human animals involved. Indeed, they do not even acknowledge their animal nature; “each cow,” they write, “is effectively an investment that pays a dividend in milk.” No, it isn’t. Each cow is a living, breathing creature—and, under our current agricultural system, one that endures extraordinary suffering.

Regardless of whether or not we replace supply management, our laws regarding cruelty to animals need to be rewritten so as to include farm animals.

The Globe didn’t print any of these three, but I was pleased to see that it did print in its June 26 issue two responses to the June 21 editorial. In one letter, P.J. Nyman of Toronto writes about how Canada’s supply management system “keeps hens locked in cages by stalling progress on animal welfare. While nearly half the U.S. egg market is now cage-free, Canada is lagging far behind for the tenth year in a row. Canadian grocery retailers once pledged to sell only cage-free eggs by 2025, but our supply management system hinders this progress, keeping hens in outdated cages with no more space than a single sheet of paper each.” In a second letter, Jane Harris of Vancouver points out that the supply management system “was initially devised to protect small farmers but has evolved into one that enables and enriches large industrial operations (which no longer can even be called farms) where millions of birds are crammed into cages, can barely move and never see the light of day. It is the small number of true farmers who humanely raised “free range” laying hens that now deserve to be protected.”