In a previous post, I have highlighted that supply management will likely be phased out within the next 15 years, either because of trade agreements or because of internal tensions which could morph into fault lines. I have been quite critical of some of the arguments used by the proponents of supply management because they don’t pass the test of facts. I will be equally critical of some of the arguments of the adversaries of supply management.

Martha Hall Findlay and Jack Mintz recently published an opinion piece in the Globe and Mail in which they outline a possible scheme to phase out supply management in Canada. Their proposal is to transpose to Canada what was implemented in Australia following the deregulation of the dairy market in 2000, namely a temporary levy on fluid milk sale to finance a quota buyout to help dairy farmers transitioning to an open market. However, one key element seems to be missing there : geography matters to trade patterns.

The Australian domestic market for fluid milk is, well, quite insulated from any competition. Therefore, substitution by cheaper imports was not a threat to Australian dairy farmers on that specific market.

In the case of Canada, the situation will be very different. If a levy was imposed on any fluid milk sale in Canada while the market is totally open, the retailers would have many incentives to substitute Canadian milk by cheaper US milk. One fact to remember here: the US states neighbouring our border produced in 2014 about 5 times more milk than Canada in its entirety (Wisconsin alone produced more than Canada). The threat of substitution will be very real in the aftermath of a brutal end of supply management. Moreover, such substitution by retailers would happen very quickly, much faster than any adaptation at the farm level.

While operating costs are fairly similar on average between dairy farms in these US states and Canada, capital and labour costs are quite higher in Canada, partly due to unrealized economies of scale. Consequently, to have a chance to compete against US dairy farms, Canadian dairy farms must be given time to transition and realize their economies of scale.

In these conditions, I think that an Australian-style levy on fluid milk would have dire consequences on the Canadian dairy industry.

The current debate has been painting supply management as the last Canadian obstacle standing in the way of the TPP agreement. Obviously, this is not true as many other issues are contentious but too often perceptions are stronger than reality. In the meantime, the dairy industry contributes significantly to the Canadian economy. So, we could say that the stakes are high.

Unfortunately, the public debate is rather poorly informed and too many arguments – for or against supply management – are weak, resorting to wishful thinking, twisting facts. What is particularly missing is foresight. Fortunately, the federal government has a group dedicated to such exercise, Policy Horizons Canada. Perhaps, it could be mandated to lead a foresight study of Canadian supply-managed industries, allowing scenarios with and without supply management in different forms.