JAY GOLDBERG: Supply management should go

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Millions of Canadians are finding it difficult to make ends meet. Far too many young Canadians think they’ll never live as good as their parents – let alone achieve the dreams they may have once had. Yet for too long, policymakers in Ottawa have refused to deal with the real issues that are holding Canadians back.

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From housing affordability to a broken taxation system, federal politicians seem to talk a good game, but action is fleeting.

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Prime Minister Mark Carney has repeatedly declared “it’s time to build.” Yet his government continues to pursue housing policies that stand in the way of real housing supply growth and greater affordability.

Tackling the real problem

Almost every politician talks about lowering taxes in some form. But here, too, there aren’t enough politicians tackling the real problem. The Carney government, for example, tinkers with Canada’s taxation system at the margins, while the entire system is in desperate need of a 1980s-style revamp.

And then there’s the issue of affordability. Canada’s food inflation continues to lead the G7. This is a fact repeatedly pointed to by the Opposition Conservatives. This year, the average family of four will pay $1,000 more for groceries than last. The Carney government admits food prices are too high. Yet no one (including the Tories) will talk about the elephant in the room: supply management.

Yes, the topic has come up in the context of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs. But everyone at the federal level seems to insist that, particularly because Trump wants changes in Canada’s agricultural policies, we somehow must stand firm and defend supply management at all costs.

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But with affordability such a pressing issue, why would we defend a policy that is keeping grocery prices artificially high for Canadians?

The Carney government seems to think revamping the GST credit as the Canada Grocery and Essentials Benefit and topping it up will somehow address food affordability. But that doesn’t actually tackle the root of the problem: how do we get prices down?

The answer is clear: when it comes to staples, from poultry to milk to eggs, we can get prices down by abandoning an antiquated system the feds adopted in the 1970s – supply management.

Supply management is a complex web of government-imposed regulations, import restrictions, and production quotas that limits the amount of dairy, eggs, and poultry in Canada. Because supply is limited, prices are kept artificially high. Prior to the pandemic, the average Canadian household was paying between $300 and $444 more per year for staples than they would have if the supply management system didn’t exist. At a time when nearly 50% of households say they’re $200 away from not being able to pay their bills, how can we justify keeping such a system in place?

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Other countries, like New Zealand, abandoned the practice of supply management.

The result?

Prices became more affordable for domestic consumers and now New Zealand is an agricultural export powerhouse.

Why wouldn’t Canada want to follow the same path?

Select sectors

Supply management also doesn’t make sense in the Canadian context because it’s only done in a very select sector. Dairy, eggs, and poultry are supply managed, but we don’t do this for beef, grain, vegetables, or fruits, among others.

Why should Canada maintain such an antiquated, anti-consumer system in one small portion of our agricultural sector while the rest of the agricultural industry largely operates according to free market principles?

Then there’s the Trump factor that simply can’t be ignored. Canada’s system of supply management imposes tariffs on U.S. farmers for dairy, eggs, and poultry of between 150% and 300%.

Canadians are rightly outraged every time Trump imposes tariffs, which have ranged from 10% to 50% or more. But the federal government is hypocritical to cry foul over Trump’s tariffs while defending supply management at all costs.

The bottom line is scrapping supply management simply makes sense. For the sake of 10,000 dairy farmers, Canadians have been overpaying for dairy, eggs, and poultry for decades.

Given today’s affordability crisis, compounded by a trade war, we simply cannot afford to hold onto this antiquated system any longer.

Jay Goldberg is the North American Affairs Manager at the Consumer Choice Center

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