A bill that would make it illegal to negotiate an increase in foreign access to Canada’s supply-managed farm sector in trade talks has made it toabout how this shortsighted and politically motivated bill is a threat the country’s future. Two brave Liberals MPs voted against it, as did a sizeable rump of Conservative MPs from the West. But it passed on third reading in the House of Commons by a 262-51 vote, and its time in the Senate has been just as frictionless.
The bill, C-282, would prevent a Canadian negotiator working on a free-trade deal from agreeing to an increase in foreign access to the markets protected by supply management – dairy, eggs and poultry – or to the lowering of existing tariffs on imports of products in those sectors that exceed quotas.
But a person doesn’t have to be philosophically opposed to supply management in order to see the folly of locking it out of future free-trade negotiations. Whether or not Mr. Trump is back in the White House in 2026, there can be no doubt that dairy, and supply management in general, will be sticking points again. Making those things untouchable will tie the hands of the government as it seeks greater access for Canadian farmers and manufacturers to Mexican and U.S. markets, and could even prove to be a breaking point in the negotiations.
This defies rationality. But then the MPs who sent the bill sailing through the House and on to an all-too-compliant Senate aren’t thinking about 2026. They are thinking only about 2025, when the next federal election is scheduled to take place.