MacNaughton said the dairy dispute could be far in the rear-view mirror by the time any potential negotiations on the long-standing trilateral trade agreement get underway.
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The work would start immediately, he added.
The Dairy Farmers of Canada said it is confident that the Canadian government will “continue to protect and defend” the country’s dairy industry. Not only would this help domestic milk producers repel the foreign invaders, but any surplus non-fat milk solids could be exported at the same ultra-low prices, without inviting charges of “dumping” (selling a good for less overseas than at home, considered a no-no in trade law).
Not everyone north of the border supports the supply management regime.
“We’re going to get together and we’re going to call Canada, and we’re going to say, ‘What happened?’ And they might give us an answer, but we’re going to get the solution and not just the answer, because we know what the solution is”.
The supply management system is created to keep foreign products out and prices up.
But critics argue it hasn’t worked.
The study also found that 71% of dairy farm owners have low to medium confidence in the validity of employment documents of their immigrant employees.
The dairy sector and the wider agriculture industry are among the areas Trump targeted during a speech to factory workers in Wisconsin on Tuesday. Mr. Trump wants more.
Canada also imposes import tariffs on ultra-filtered milk, a protein liquid concentrate used to make cheese.
It would be odd if ultra-filtered milk should one day prove to have been supply management’s undoing. Because it’s considered a milk ingredient, it’s not subject to the same tariffs as milk.
The United States is the world’s biggest cheese exporter outside Europe. “It’s specifically designed for our market”.
They argued, quite effectively, that if Canadians were free to import their dairy from the United States, the average Canadian household would save $438 a year – a significant amount of savings for those straddling the poverty line. “There has been no change in regulation”.
She says dismantling the current supply management system would be a boon to all concerned – even though there might be some short-term pain for some in the sector, who she says, could be compensated for any losses deemed a direct effect the new economic reality.
That’s not because U.S. President Donald Trump has claimed the Canadian system is unfair to U.S. farmers.
Certainly not. Where dairy trade is concerned, tensions between Canada and the USA have been increasing for months now. The Canadian action was market manipulation, Toronto trade lawyer Larry Herman said, but it’s allowed under NAFTA. “You can not penetrate the American market and have a fair price for producers”.
About 70 dairy producers in both Wisconsin and NY are affected by the new rules, and have lobbied the US government for action on the file.
“We can’t produce milk against the U.S. Treasury”, he said.
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McCart of the Farmers’ Association agrees. “I think they need to look within their own industry in terms of how they could better respond to the marketplace that they are in”, said Weins.
