Trudeau's Soviet style Supply-management DAIRY CARTEL: It must Stop !

[moneytalks]

As value oriented consumers we should find it abhorrent that Trudeau's Dairy Cartel ignores the very people who do the living and dying and paying and donating in this country, with a policy bought and paid for by BIG DAIRY.

It's time we had Regime Change, a new government, that respected our contribution to Canada and stopped treating us as speculators:


Last week in Virginia, 1 gallon (3.785 liters) unit MILK $2.35, 1 doz large eggs $0.35c.
A month ago in Michigan, 1 gallon milk $0.85c.


In Montreal a 4 liter unit Milk just under $7.00
Eggs $4.00

Summer 2016, as american farmers were dumping excess milk inventories into their fields, in Montreal, the price of milk was increased.


In a February 2017 Bloomberg piece the Trudeau agriculture minister (who's office employs a Burnbrae egg family member), called the Dairy Cartel a "model for the world".

Sadly Sir, you just don't get it: These artificially inflated dairy prices are the equivalent of stealing food out of the mouths of hungry children. It's must Stop.

ALL WE'VE GOT...the only person who can rescue ordinary Canadians from this Trudeau Dairy Cartel nightmare - is Trump's NAFTA negotiator.

Exactly how poor do Canadians need to be, before Trudeau and his lackey agriculture minister think they've achieved a mission accomplished moment ?

How poor?

[bhlombardy]

Sadly, this is what happens when people read too much propaganda and dont look at the facts and figures that protect our own Canadian industries from being drowned out by foreign industry.

Our Canadian dairy farms are nowhere near as dense nor as plentiful as the US. It's simple geography, population, and economics here. Supply and demand, and yes more stringent food regulations make our industry's product more costly. So does the need to transport that dairy because, as noted, we as consumers arent as densely populated amongst our dairy providers as the US is.

Perhaps the US has too much dairy surplus and needs an outlet for unwanted/unused dairy (you say they're dumping it out?). However, that's the reason as to why their prices are so much lower. They need to low-ball it in order to move the product. When supply outweighs demand, prices drop. Again, simple economics.

And yet the suggestion to "fix" our problem (if we even have one?) is that we allow all that foreign surplus product into our country? That doesnt help us, it helps THEM. You want to allow OUR industry to befall the same perils as theirs by becoming included into their already over-supplied market? Risk drowning out our dairy farmers? put them out of business? have it so THEY can't even supply their product to OUR people? to what end? to ensure the US Dairy industry has an outlet for their product? so THEIR Dairy industry can flourish?


Forget the US for a moment... FORGET that another country, with a completely different economy, population, geography and market density can sell it for half of that... let's keep the facts in Canada for a moment:

Milk prices are circling around $7 a gallon (and for those doing the math, that's about 4 Liters... two 2L cartons) .. that's accurate to say across the country. It's about that price here in NB too. OK, why is that unfair? What makes it unfair? Where are the facts to support that this cost is not justified? -- and you cant say "because it costs half that in another country" ... no. different country, means different economy, different market. Why is $7 a gallon unjust in Canada?

We have an extremely large land-mass coast to coast, with far less people to occupy that much larger space, yet a need to get product to all of those people. We also have a climate that is traditionally colder than most making our farming seasons that much shorter than most. We have a limited time frame to produce food products that then need to meet our more stringent food safety regulations, and then be transported across the land to the people that are to consume it while it's still fresh and consumable. These factors combined also runs a larger risk of shrinkage and spoilage.

This isnt about gouging the Canadian people (as the OP implies). It's just straight economics and not atypical for a food industry.

The fact that there is little competition is because the smaller companies that once existed just cant sustain themselves in the model that is Canada. Again, it's because our country is stretched thinner across a larger geographical market. The smaller businesses can't sustain themselves and have to rely on a larger entity to spread the costs of operation evenly across the land. They wind up selling their operations to the larger companies. It's the exact reason we only have three telco companies here now, not 8 (or not 12 or 15 like it was when I was a child)... It's the same reason we have two television providers and not fifty or more (like when every local market basically had at least one of their own)... It's the same reason we have one movie-theatre franchise (Cineplex)... and it's the same reason we have two major grocery corporations, and not twelve or more, (like 40 years ago when the only grocery store you had was a locally owned store, or even a local area chain.)

OH!... AND it's why we have ONE major retail giant... Walmart. Good thing we let that American company come here. They came in riding on the backbone of their US market and economy to ensure dominance this side of the border. Since then, Woolco is a distant memory, Zellers is now gone, Sears Canada is on it's last legs, HBC (Zeller's parent) isnt really flourishing... but Walmart is kicking ass. When they didnt drive a local store out of business, they bought them out and took their place.

You make it sound like all our Dairy farmers need is a little competition to lower their prices. Prove that, please. You also make it sound like we'd be able to buy milk from US Dairy providers for $2 a gallon if they shipped it here. I can assure you that wouldnt happen. Firstly, They too would have to transport it across our vast, sparsely populated country just as we do... and sell it to the same market. But even if that wasnt a factor, we're already conditioned to paying $7+ a gallon... they'd want their cut of that too, rest assured. They'd undercut our industry by as little as they could get away with, until they drove our industry into the ground, and then we'd be no better off. You can rest assured they'll want to charge as much as they figure they could get away with.

While I empathize and agree that it's sad that not everyone can afford the cost of milk in this country, unfortunately that's what it costs to operate the industry in Canada. A lot of those same people cant afford fresh produce either, or a loaf of bread. But let's not act hastily and impoverish MORE families (ie: Canadian Dairy Farmers) by destroying their livelihood with foreign product as well.

If there was a shortage, and we NEEDED milk in this country, that's one thing... but we dont. We have a sustaining industry that, admittedly, might cost more than it needs to in order to operate, but the solution ISNT to let a foreign interest else beat it to death and replace it.

[Darth Penguin]

Well said @bhlombardy .

AFAIK, minimum milk pricing as been a thing in Quebec since at least 2000. So it pre-dates anything the current Prime Minister Trudeau by a long way.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dairy_farming_in_Canada


eta...I see that is was the late PM Trudeau...oops! My bad!

[Midnightly]

i could be wrong, but isn't the milk in the US highly subsidized by the government? and i do know Canada has much higher restrictions on the quality of the milk being produced

milk does vary across the country.. we buy a 4L of homo milk every 4-6 days.. it can vary by about 50c depending where you go but it's about $5.50 a jug (2% is a tad cheaper)