00:05:51.800You refused today to committing to legislation to protect supply management for people in agriculture.
00:05:57.640Why? In my opinion, it's not necessary to make laws for negotiation positions. It's not about legislation to have a
00:06:09.640negotiation with you, say, as a European and with regards to critical minerals. It isn't necessary. I know about negotiation.
00:06:17.420So to me, that's the interesting point here, because he's saying that when you're negotiating with a foreign country, you don't want to be bound by legislation that could hurt your negotiating position.
00:06:28.880And so again, that was sort of applying that maybe he would have some room to negotiate. And he was pretty adamant there, saying that it's not necessary. And then yet, here we are seeing him go ahead and back the very bill that he said wasn't necessary. So what do you make of that?
00:06:42.340Yeah, so the second version, the French debate, what he was saying is accurate. I don't think you need to do this. And honestly, I think it would position, it would put Canada in a very weak position moving forward with any country, to be honest, because typically, when you start negotiating with another country, you will put on the table sensitive sectors.
00:07:11.420And so there would be an automatic for Canada. Do you need a bill? Do you need a law to protect that sector? I don't think so, to be honest, because eventually, we're probably going to have to make some compromises along the way, as we did with the United States, Mexico, Canadian deal that was ratified in 2020. And of course, we all know what happened next. We all had to pay a $1.2 billion bill,
00:07:40.420given back to dairy farmers as compensation, if you will, even though, Candace, I'm not sure if you were aware, but dairy farmers don't lose a cent with these deals at all. I mean, when you actually look at how much money they're losing, they're not losing at all, they recalibrate quotas, which indicates how politicians poorly understand the system. It's all about theater, it's about artifacts. So I think what
00:08:10.420Prime Minister Carney's understanding now is that he needs to go ahead with this bill, only to show that he cares very much about supply management. But it doesn't mean that there aren't going to be compromises made along the way.
00:08:23.420Okay, so you're saying that maybe this is just posturing, because from my perspective, I mean, he just won an election. It's not like we're heading into another election anytime soon. So I don't really understand why he has to do this.
00:08:35.420To me, the one sort of silver lining of being in a trade war with our closest friends and allies is that maybe it would be a time for introspection and reflection upon our own policies, so that we can go ahead and get rid of the protectionist policies that really severely benefit a small, small group of people and harm the rest of Canadians.
00:08:54.640And we're talking about this in light of crippling food inflation, as it is like the cost of dairy is more expensive in Canada, because of this system system was designed, I think in the 1950s, maybe you can correct me if I'm wrong. 1972. Yeah, okay. 1970s. It seems like it's quite out of date. And maybe we should adapt and have a sort of more modern laissez faire free market system. And yet that seems to be completely off the table. I want to read a tweet that you posted because I love this.
00:09:21.640You said, for Canada to truly have a thriving agri-food economy, provincial dairy boards that manage quotas must be eliminated, but don't hold your breath. If anything, the 45th parliament is likely to repeat the same mistakes as the last one, doubling down on protecting dairy.
00:09:35.780It's interesting because I remember when Stephen Harper was the prime minister and the conservative government got rid of the wheat board, and that was a huge victory. And I thought, you know, next will be the dairy board. And yet that was, preferably, you know, no pun intended, but the sacred cow of Canadian politics.
00:09:49.120And it seems like it still is. So what do you make of all that?
00:09:52.800The monopsony that impacted barley and wheat, I was actually in Saskatchewan at the time, and it was really a different system.
00:10:01.180And it was easier to dismantle because to be honest, a lot of farmers were discontent, were unhappy with the system.
00:10:07.400They were able to trade better than the Canadian wheat board based out of Winnipeg.
00:10:12.060And that's why it was easier for Chuck Strahl at the time, he was the Minister of Agriculture, to get rid of it, really, through a plebiscite.
00:10:19.800The supply management system is much more complicated. There's a lot of fiscal baggage here.
00:10:25.680You have a quota system, first of all.
00:10:28.400Secondly, you have provinces managing quotas.
00:10:32.660And that, of course, would include Quebec and Quebec, with only 20% of the population, produces almost 40% of all the milk we have in Canada.
00:10:43.180So you can tell that Quebec has a lot to lose, which makes it a very political, well, hot potato.
00:10:50.460I was asked by many politicians over the years, if I were to have superpowers and eliminate or at least make supply management better, what would you do?
00:11:03.240If there's one thing I would do right now would be to harmonize the allocation of quotas nationally, not provincially, but nationally.
00:11:13.560And that's where you're going to start seeing more efficiencies.
00:11:17.180And to your point about costs, you would probably reduce the cost to produce milk and butterfat in Canada because the money will go where efficiencies are built, in Alberta, in Saskatchewan, in BC.
00:11:30.600So the money would actually flow west.
00:11:33.740And Quebec and Ontario, both provinces absolutely know this.
00:11:37.480That's why they're adamant in protecting the status quo.
00:11:39.640Well, I'm guessing that's part of the reason why those changes aren't being seriously discussed, because if the benefit is in Ontario and Quebec, that's, you know, the system is going to be protected to keep it that way.
00:11:51.620I want to tie this into food inflation and what many Canadians are experiencing when they go to the grocery store, which is just that the prices continue to go up.
00:12:01.720So this was a report that came out over the weekend.
00:12:06.960According to Loblaw's company, May Food Inflation Report, grocery prices rose 3.8% per year over year from last April, surpassing the General Consumer Price Index.
00:12:17.660This marks the third consecutive month where food inflation has outstripped overall inflation, noted by Statistics Canada.
00:12:24.500You had an article over in Troy Media about a week and a half ago saying blaming the U.S. won't cut it.
00:12:30.260Canada's food inflation crisis is largely the result of Ottawa's poor policy choices.
00:12:35.480So can you help us understand why prices are continuing to rise?
00:12:40.380So 3.8% is the highest food inflation rate amongst G7 countries, with the exception of Japan.
00:12:51.560And right now, food inflation is 2.1% above inflation, which means that if you and I want to go to the grocery store, when we see high prices, we'll notice.
00:13:02.880And so what's going on right now, counter tariffs have not helped.
00:13:07.600So in March, from March the 3rd to through March, April and beginning of May, we actually, a lot of importers had to deal with counter tariffs.
00:13:18.340But the one thing that you may not know, Candice, is that during the election, Mark Carney decided to pause counter tariffs affecting the food industry, effective May 7th, a few weeks ago, until October.
00:13:35.540So Loblaw came out a few weeks ago, saying, well, we're going to have 6,000 products affected by counter tariffs.
00:13:43.680Well, not quite, because as of May 7th, which is the day after Mark Carney met with President Trump, by the way, no coincidence, tariffs were paused.
00:13:55.640And so counter tariffs aren't going to be a problem for May, June.
00:13:59.140So we are expecting the food inflation rate to actually drop.
00:14:02.540But the troubling part of all this is that no one has actually talked about it.
00:14:08.960And the first person I would point to is Prime Minister Carney.
00:14:12.000He should have said during the elbows up campaign that perhaps implementing counter tariffs actually will penalize Canadians first.
00:15:25.720And when it comes to that, you had another interesting concept in this article I hadn't really heard or really understood, although you see it when you go to the grocery store.
00:15:33.220And that was you call it maple washing, where companies overstate or exaggerate a product's connection to Canada.
00:15:38.920I noticed when I go to the grocery store, it's almost obnoxious, Sylvain, because a Canadian product, you know, they put like a huge maple leaf on it.
00:15:45.420They really want you to know that this product is Canadian.
00:15:48.260And they kind of like try to hide the non-Canadian products, even though the Canadian ones often are more expensive.
00:15:54.160So can you help us understand what you mean by maple washing?
00:16:42.340He came, he went back the next day, the next day, same store, same shelf, only to discover that those naval oranges were in fact from Egypt and they were 12.5% less expensive.