JAY GOLDBERG: Will any party stand up for Canadian consumers?

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Canadian families pay hundreds of dollars a year more for dairy, poultry and eggs due to the country’s antiquated supply management system.

This system restricts the production of dairy, poultry and eggs in Canada and imposes severe quotas and tariffs on potential imports from abroad.

All of this is done to protect fewer than 10,000 dairy farms across Canada from real competition.

Canada is a nation of 40 million people. In the last federal election, more than 19 million Canadians went to the polls. Yet not one major political party is prepared to stand up for Canadian consumers and demand an end to supply management.

In the last federal election, every major political party decided to support Canada’s decades-old supply management system. Not one of them proposed minor reforms, let alone ending the practice altogether.

In the very short period that Parliament did meet after this spring’s federal election before rising for the summer, the Bloc Québécois tabled a bill calling on the government to take supply management off the table in any future trade negotiations.

Instead of recognizing that supply management is bound to be a sticking point with the Trump administration, which could only worsen the present trade conflict between Canada and the United States, every party in the House of Commons decided to support the Bloc’s motion.

The bill travelled through Parliament at warp speed. Politicians today couldn’t all agree tax cuts, spending restraint, health-care reform or even what type of food should be served in Parliament’s cafeteria.

But somehow, every single party lined up to support a bill that would help entrench the status quo of fewer choices and higher prices for Canadian consumers.

Where were the Conservatives on this? The party has been oddly supportive of supply management since the creation of the modern Conservative Party back in 2003. Usually, the Conservative Party sees itself as a party that fights for lower prices and less regulation. But not on this.

How about the Liberals? They backed down on the party’s beloved digital services tax at the eleventh hour at the urging of the Trump administration; a tax that would have applied to technology giants like Amazon, Apple and Uber and raised prices for Canadian consumers. The party has also done a 180-degree turn on defence spending, moving up Canada’s two per cent spending target timetable and committing to spending 5% of gross domestic product on national defence by 2035.

But on supply management? Apparently, the Liberals won’t be moved.

Canada’s Members of Parliament are foolish to tie the hands of trade negotiators in this way, especially when it comes at the cost of millions of Canadian consumers.

One party could have stood up in the House of Commons and declared that it is time for Canada’s dairy farmers to compete with the world. Evidence from other countries has shown that opening the sector lowers prices, increases choice and ultimately leads to innovation in the sector and higher exports and profits for the dairy sector in the long run.

But every man and woman decided to defend the unacceptable status quo. A status quo that costs the average consumer up to $444 a year from higher dairy, poultry, and egg prices.

Canadian consumers, who are facing household grocery bills $800 more than last year, should remember the vote their political leaders took in Ottawa the next time they pick up some milk, cheese and chicken. And they should certainly remember how politicians voted come the next election.

The truth is that the dairy lobby has an iron grip over Ottawa, consumers be damned.

It’s time for Canadian consumers to stand up and demand to be represented. Supply management is about to become a major issue in trade negotiations with the United States and has stymied trade deals with other countries like the United Kingdom in the past.

If Canada doesn’t want to end up with massive new tariffs from the United States and wants to compete in the global marketplace, politicians in Ottawa must have the courage to stand up to lobbyists and defend the biggest interest group of all: Canadian consumers.

Jay Goldberg is the Canadian affairs manager at the Consumer Choice Center