MPs from all parties defend supply management against Trump, Bernier
Rural MPs from across multiple parties have been hearing concern from their constituents after American President Donald Trump threatened to come after Canada’s dairy industry. Mr. Trump turned his sights, and his tweets, towards Canadian dairy farmers last month, claiming that because of Canada’s trade regulations on dairy products, which block much of the United States’ dairy […]
Trump for dummies: there’s no scapegoat like a foreign scapegoat
OTTAWA—The CNN anchors kept looking at each other, half-laughing. “Canada?” they kept saying, as in United States President Donald Trump is picking a fight with Canada? This was a few weeks ago, when Trump was calling Canada’s dairy policies a “disgrace” that damaged the interests of U.S. farmers. With the 100-day mark bearing down on him, […]
Trudeau: don’t back down on Canada’s supply management system
TORONTO—Canada’s supply management system is now the target of the Trump administration, but this U.S. whining is not new. Successive U.S. administrations have railed against the system because it prevents a U.S. dairy industry, notorious for overproduction, from dumping its surplus into the Canadian market. Yet the system works well for Canada, providing stability for […]
Trudeau smart to hold his tongue after tough Trump trade talk
MONTREAL—In the big picture, the world is probably having a decent week when Donald Trump turns his rhetorical guns on Canada rather than on North Korea or Russia. On the scale of a nuclear showdown, the stakes involved in a Canada/United States milk war are—to put it mildly—in a different league. But even in the […]
Tory leadership candidates courting supply management group for support
Multiple candidates in the Conservative leadership race have reached out for support from the organizers of a politically active Facebook group in Quebec created to defend supply management. Staff on the campaigns for Andrew Scheer (Regina-Qu’Appelle, Sask.), Michael Chong (Wellington-Halton Hills, Ont.), and Steven Blaney (Bellechasse-Les Etchemins-Lévis, Que.) have contacted the administrator or one of […]
U.S. dairy industry better off adopting Canada’s supply management system
SAANICHTON, B.C.—It is because the United States dairy industry does not have a supply management system like Canada’s excellent one that their dairy farmers suffer at the mercy of their unregulated system and regularly go through boom and bust cycles. Canada is one of the few countries in the world that had the foresight to regulate the production […]
Verbatim: Canada, trade and Trump in a changing world
Former prime minister Brian Mulroney addressed the FarmTech conference in Edmonton on Feb. 2, telling Canada’s agricultural producers that he’s sanguine about the Trump administration on trade and calling for an end to the country’s supply management system. EDMONTON—I am not here today as an expert in farm technologies. If I were, that would make […]
How to make NAFTA great again
MONTREAL—During the American election campaign, Donald Trump criticized the North American Free Trade Agreement on several occasions, going so far as to call it “a disaster,” and he clearly stated his intention to renegotiate it. Although the new president is wrong to target it as the source of the economic ills afflicting his country, it […]
Indian high commissioner remains ‘hopeful’ pulses trade spat will be resolved before deadline
India’s new high commissioner, Vikas Swarup, says he is hopeful that India will renew its six-month relaxation period on Canada’s pulse exports. “I can only remain hopeful” he said. “It eventually depends on what comes out of India. But the conversations I’ve had lead me to go in a positive direction.” India is Canada’s biggest […]
Agriculture complicates Trump’s trade bluster
Questions are swirling around the direction of United States trade policy now that Donald Trump is in the White House. He came out swinging against Mexico and China for what he perceives to be the theft of American manufacturing jobs. He is considering a 20 per cent border tax on imports from Mexico as a […]
