Cory Morgan Show. Austerity is inevitable
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
177.51698
Summary
Dr. Danny LaRoy joins us to talk about supply management and the impact it has on the dairy industry. He also talks about the parallels between the current economic and political situation in Canada and what happened in the late 80s and early 90s.
Transcript
00:00:30.000
Good day and welcome to the Corey Morgan Show. I am Corey Morgan. We put a lot of thought into the name for this show. It gets to the point though, I tend to get to the point throughout the course of this show. This is our weekly Western Standard produced news and opinion show and we always have plenty of news and I have plenty of opinion to share throughout it. So to those of you joining us live as we broadcast this, please by all means use the comment thread there. I love seeing them. I love seeing the interaction.
00:01:00.000
Comment with each other, send questions my way, send questions towards the guests. I really appreciate it. I don't necessarily read them all out, but I do see them all in it. It lets me know somebody's out there and I'm not just talking to myself like I do when I'm driving around in my car. Just keep things civil with each other, of course, so we don't have to be at each other's throats. We got Twitter for that or X as it is called these days. I should try to keep up with things.
00:01:21.920
So yeah, as always, I like to think they're always good shows. I got another good one coming up today. I'm going to have as a guest, Dr. Danny LaRoy. He's an associate professor of economics with an agricultural specialty at University of Lethbridge and we're going to talk about supply management.
00:01:38.160
I know it sounds dull to people, but it does impact you, every one of you actually, and it costs you at the table. So we're going to have a little more discussion on it and I'm sure I'll get all the crabby emails from dairy farmers after we have that discussion, but that's fine. That's part of the discourse, part of the chat.
00:01:54.160
It needs to be talked about. So I'm going to start with what's got me, you know, going a bit today. I'm going to put on my prognostication hat and my crystal ball here and try and guess what's coming up in the future.
00:02:05.620
And it's pretty easy because what's going on right now in politics has already happened before. I mean, the parallels are almost chilling. We got a Trudeau as Canada's prime minister right now.
00:02:14.960
Western resource development's under attack. Government spending is out of control. Inflation harming citizens and interest rates are on the rise.
00:02:23.620
It sounds just like the 80s, late 70s. The current economic path now, though, is unsustainable and is going to come to a crashing halt eventually.
00:02:31.920
And, you know, there's lots of blame to throw around. Conservative governments are usually a little better than liberal ones in times like this.
00:02:37.520
I mean, Mulroney continued with spending increases and deficit budgets when Pierre Trudeau exited the scene.
00:02:43.300
In Alberta, the progressive conservatives under premiers Lougheed and Getty, they borrowed heavily while pouring tax funds into a series of failed corporate welfare schemes.
00:02:51.500
Now, the bubble finally burst in the 1990s for pretty much everybody. Debt servicing costs were taking a massive bite from government budgets while citizens just weren't ready to accept more tax increases.
00:03:03.400
So governments at all levels, with every political stripe, had to cut spending. There was no getting around it.
00:03:08.440
Federally, the Kretchen government balanced the budget, while provincially, we had Ralph Klein and Mike Harris bringing spending under control in Alberta and Ontario.
00:03:17.360
And, yeah, in Saskatchewan, even the NDP out there, they had to face economic reality.
00:03:22.080
Roy Romano cut spending by 10% in one budget. He managed to balance the books in 1994.
00:03:28.180
It wasn't easy, though. Unions, lobby groups, individuals, they screamed bloody murder through the 90s as the cuts were applied across the country.
00:03:35.620
But at that time, at least their protests were unheeded. Canadians wanted to see balanced budgets, and they wanted to see governments cutting spending.
00:03:43.400
Eventually, though, the cycle turned. With balanced budgets, times became good again.
00:03:48.460
Economies picked up, and the governments began to open the spending floodgates again.
00:03:52.900
Even in Alberta, under Klein, the spending began to rise quickly at the end of the 90s.
00:03:57.020
Ironically, it was when Klein started increasing expenditures when his provincial support started to flag.
00:04:02.700
You know, citizens are fine with low government spending, but politicians just can't resist increasing the budgets.
00:04:08.160
It's an easier way to manage the government than being fiscally responsible. Just toss more money at it.
00:04:14.080
That administrative sloth, though, does come with a price over time.
00:04:17.600
And in 1999, the federal government returned to deficit budgets.
00:04:20.820
And in Alberta, it took till 2008, but deficit financing has returned here as well, and we haven't managed to produce a balanced budget since.
00:04:27.900
Low interest rates may allow governments to get away with deficit financing for a time, but as we're seeing today, the rates don't stay low forever.
00:04:36.540
Just servicing the federal debt alone is going to cost an estimated $34.7 billion in 2022-2023.
00:04:44.980
That's assuming interest rates stop rising, of course.
00:04:47.760
And every province is flushing money down the toilet on debt servicing, too.
00:04:50.860
It's interest costs, guys. It's money on the credit cards that we could really spend in better places.
00:04:55.420
Now, the Trudeau government, this is where it got me going on this, recently called for departments to find $15 billion in savings.
00:05:01.280
I thought, wow, are they finally going to do like Kretchen and be responsible liberals and do some cuts?
00:05:06.460
But no, then they quickly pivoted to say, oh, we're not going to cut $15 billion in spending.
00:05:10.840
We just want to find those savings and we'll shift it to other departments.
00:05:13.560
So in other words, they won't even talk about cutting the spending.
00:05:16.300
The hard reality governments and citizens need to face is that governments spend too much.
00:05:20.640
And yes, I'm including citizens in that statement because, hey, we're the ones who keep turning to the government for every service or problem.
00:05:28.060
People want every pet project funded, every foreign cause supported, and every industry subsidized, or they'll take their votes elsewhere.
00:05:34.660
I know it doesn't apply to everybody. It applies to enough of them.
00:05:37.300
Whether we like it or not, people tend to vote for whatever politician blows the most sunshine up their butt at election time,
00:05:43.240
and they tend to shy away from politicians offering a realistic fiscal platform.
00:05:48.060
People won't change their demands of governments until they start directly seeing the cost of spending, but we are starting to see it now.
00:05:54.060
Deficit spending is fostering inflation while taxes increase to try and keep up with the spending.
00:05:58.720
The rising cost of living is hurting everybody, along with the taxes.
00:06:02.600
Taxes alone right now eat up 45.3% of the average family's income, while food, clothing, and shelter only make up 35.6%.
00:06:10.140
Citizens are loath to admit it, but they can't hide from it forever.
00:06:13.400
Remember, when enough people realize that government is the largest expense in their life and they just can't afford it anymore,
00:06:20.740
The question with spending cuts and austerity isn't a matter of if they're going to happen, it's a matter of when.
00:06:26.640
I mean, the laws of economics are as immutable as those of gravity, and the spending will have to be brought back into check eventually.
00:06:34.360
The longer we wait to cut spending, though, the harder it's going to be when those cuts come.
00:06:39.360
An increasing segment of the population has become dependent upon government jobs and programs,
00:06:43.320
and that segment's going to suffer when the government's spending starts contracting.
00:06:51.360
We're on a slow-motion collision course with an inevitable fiscal reality check.
00:06:56.480
The sooner we can ring the alarm bells, the better.
00:07:00.340
We've got to start reining in spending and reducing future pain.
00:07:03.120
And right now it feels like the warnings are falling on deaf ears,
00:07:05.880
but hopefully citizens start to get the wax out and start listening soon.
00:07:08.760
Because when the citizens move, the politicians will follow.
00:07:15.980
Just some dry economic topics, but it's important stuff.
00:07:18.740
Let's get on to the other news, because a bunch of stuff's been breaking.
00:07:21.280
And check in with our news editor, Dave Naylor, and see what else is going on out there.
00:07:32.200
I was driving in this morning, going down Deerfoot, and this, you know, in the back mirror,
00:07:37.760
all I see is this rental car zooming by me, like about 140.
00:07:42.820
I thought it might be Chrystia Freeland, but I don't think it was.
00:07:48.420
Well, she'll make sure that she's chauffeured again from there on forward.
00:07:52.580
Maybe this is why she doesn't have a car, Corey.
00:07:54.840
She lost it through speeding suspensions and all that sort of good stuff.
00:07:58.820
Well, I wish she would be as ambitious about managing our budget as she is about making
00:08:13.520
It's Evgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Russian mercenary group Wagner, has been killed after
00:08:24.820
You remember, Corey, he rebelled against Putin and all his troops were marching towards Moscow
00:08:30.680
when he suddenly decided to stop and go into exile in Belarus.
00:08:35.520
And we all knew his days were numbered, but I certainly didn't have him being killed by
00:08:41.600
I had him falling out a window in the office, the office bingo.
00:08:49.680
Closer to home, the Liberals, as you know, were having their cabinet retreat in lovely Prince
00:08:57.760
Trudeau today issued some more word salad on the housing crisis.
00:09:01.660
Pierre Polyev, leader of the opposition, came out afterwards and was very strong and
00:09:07.860
gave some actual possible solutions to the housing crisis.
00:09:14.480
The CRA, which is normally used to suing people, is in fact being sued themselves in a class action
00:09:20.960
lawsuit by people who had their identities stolen during a massive breach of CRA computers
00:09:33.820
OPEC, we always knew there were a bunch of slimy people, but the former head of OPEC has
00:09:40.660
been arrested in England and charged with bribery.
00:09:44.180
So that shows you the type of people that they are.
00:09:49.460
And the International Weightlifting Federation has decided that they need to change their rules.
00:09:54.960
This is after a Canadian male weightlifter recently won a championship by entering the female side
00:10:03.900
And he won by lifting more than 450 pounds more than his nearest competitor.
00:10:07.940
So the Federation said, well, that's enough of that.
00:10:11.020
We're going to change that and change our policies.
00:10:13.880
So it's going to be women versus women and men versus men.
00:10:17.560
We've got a story up there on Jordan Peterson, everybody's favorite psychologist.
00:10:23.640
According to Ontario rule today that the regulator can send him for sensitivity training over
00:10:34.260
And our energy expert, Sean Polzer, has got a story that Canadian oil output will be the highest in five years.
00:10:45.860
And a couple of stories that we're working on will be up shortly.
00:10:50.900
You remember Calgary Catholic Bishop Fred Henry Corey.
00:10:58.500
He wrote a letter saying he's demanding the feds find out if even one residential school child
00:11:04.700
is missing and murdered perhaps all those years ago.
00:11:10.680
And some people around Kelowna are going to be happy because they've been given the all clear
00:11:17.760
And I'm sure they're all anxious to get back home and see what damage was caused, Corey.
00:11:23.840
I've never had to be evacuated before, but it's got to be stressful and terrible.
00:11:27.700
I'm glad, you know, with all these fires and these evacuations and everything that's happened,
00:11:32.600
I mean, it seems like we're erring on the side of caution because, you know,
00:11:35.580
the fires haven't swept through any really densely populated communities yet anyway.
00:11:43.100
Well, after what happened on Maui a couple of weeks ago, it's obviously better safe than sorry.
00:11:51.780
I'll let you get back at it and I'll talk to you after the show.
00:11:58.140
And this is when I like to remind you, look at all those stories.
00:12:04.180
Lots of opinion and all sorts of content on there, guys.
00:12:07.220
The reason we stay independent is where I nag you.
00:12:09.520
This is where I shake the cup and ask for the money is because of subscribers.
00:12:15.880
It's just, again, we never thought twice about subscribing for a newspaper in the past.
00:12:22.840
And the government, you know, we can't even share our content on Meta and some of those
00:12:29.780
To those who have already subscribed, thank you very much.
00:12:37.180
That's part of the other thing, too, this ridiculous C-18, this stopping of links for
00:12:42.840
The problem is it's harder to reach out and get to new people.
00:12:45.980
It's harder for them to find us in the first place.
00:12:48.020
After that, they can come directly to the site, which is westernstandard.news.
00:12:55.420
You can share it on X, formerly Twitter, and all those sites.
00:12:58.740
And this is how we can beat the government regulation and allow independent media to keep
00:13:02.500
going and keep those stories rolling out there.
00:13:10.880
You know, I mean, this was a guy who stood up to Putin with that Wagner group, the mercenary.
00:13:17.500
And the only question was when he was going to die and how.
00:13:21.540
It sounds like they didn't even bother trying to sugarcoat this.
00:13:25.860
You know, usually they try for an accidental death of poisoning or maybe choking at a fancy
00:13:34.400
And working for Russian oligarchies and other such places like that.
00:13:42.420
So, yeah, you know, the talk, the talk, the starting monologue, the things that are going
00:13:53.960
I mean, people are having a heck of a time finding a home.
00:13:56.560
I can't imagine what it takes for a young person to get that down payment together, you
00:14:02.900
I mean, getting in on a house right now, way out of control.
00:14:12.100
It's a lot of it comes down to oversized government.
00:14:15.620
A lot of it comes to bad policy, over-regulation.
00:14:21.280
Whether it's home construction, like Polyev has been talking about, or whether it's in
00:14:27.200
And now, you know, sort of segueing into my guest here, because this is an area, I've
00:14:31.400
talked about it on the show before, but we don't talk about it enough.
00:14:34.100
And we've got a supply managed system in Canada.
00:14:37.740
And I'll kind of lead and save him some of the explanation.
00:14:40.140
The bottom line is dairy, poultry, eggs, they are all tightly, tightly controlled.
00:14:47.020
You can't produce over a certain amount, or even start producing, in some cases, unless
00:14:53.260
Those quotas have become a commodity in themselves.
00:14:55.280
But what they do is artificially, I mean, some would say keep the price stable, but they
00:15:00.420
We pay some of the highest prices when compared to comparable countries for those sorts of
00:15:10.140
And it's one area, I think, we'll see, we'll talk to my guest about that, where maybe some
00:15:15.120
quick changes can help make some things affordable for Canadians from the government right away.
00:15:20.760
As I said earlier at the start of the show, it's Danny Leroy, he's an associate professor
00:15:25.600
of economics, boy, that's a tongue twister, at University of Lethbridge, and specializing
00:15:33.080
So thank you very much, doctor, for joining us today.
00:15:44.820
I mean, what is Canada's supply management policy and maybe a little bit of why?
00:15:54.980
Supply management was first introduced in Canada in the dairy industry in the late 1960s, the
00:16:05.240
early 1970s, and the aim of the program was to enhance and stabilize the returns to raw milk
00:16:15.100
At the time, there was a lot of price variability in raw milk, and people who produce milk tended
00:16:24.580
to be in parts of the country where alternatives weren't very good in terms of production of
00:16:32.440
So it was a way of providing assistance to individuals engaged in agricultural activities in challenging
00:16:43.720
The idea behind how it works is that prices for producers are determined based on cost of
00:16:55.280
production formula so that producers, most of them, have an opportunity to earn a living
00:17:06.300
Like I said, this was first introduced in dairy in the late 1960s, early 70s.
00:17:25.540
So there's five commodities in this country that are strictly controlled in terms of their
00:17:30.780
production and the prices that producers receive.
00:17:35.380
So, I mean, at this point, though, do we need these policies?
00:17:39.400
I mean, I have seen some papers put out and studies showing that we're paying quite a premium
00:17:44.260
for those products in Canada when perhaps, you know, if those policies were lifted, we could
00:18:02.160
Over the course of the last 50 or more years, many intergenerational farms in the supply managed
00:18:11.460
area, they've become quite dependent on the continuation of this program, right?
00:18:17.660
It enables, supply management enables them to sell a product into a protected market,
00:18:25.440
privileged market at a price that they know that they're going to receive if they meet
00:18:29.980
the specifications in terms of quality and quantity, right?
00:18:33.420
There's a, so there's, they don't have to worry about some of the risks that other producers
00:18:39.500
face in terms of marketing their commodity, right?
00:18:44.700
For example, that raw milk producers or egg producers or poultry producers, they don't
00:18:50.880
face the same price risks as a, as a producer of cattle or, or grains or oilseeds do in, in
00:19:02.940
If these policies were, were removed or were changed.
00:19:10.620
One of the things that is a pretty clear fact about economic science is that whenever there
00:19:18.420
is free trade between individuals, each counterparty to the transaction wins, right?
00:19:24.420
So if it were possible to remove the impediments between willing buyers and willing sellers,
00:19:29.460
there could be more wealth created in markets for raw milk, eggs, turkey, chicken, and so
00:19:37.020
So, I mean, if we moved away from it, I mean, it was a bit of a trend.
00:19:40.500
A lot of nations brought in supply management policies during that time as well.
00:19:44.380
New Zealand, Australia are examples we hear about a lot.
00:19:47.460
I mean, you can't just flick a light switch and say, okay, we've stopped the policies.
00:19:52.940
I mean, quotas became a commodity, even an artificial one.
00:19:56.480
So they would need to be bought out or eased out of the system.
00:19:59.760
That's also, that's also a political question, right?
00:20:02.600
So the choice of subsidizing somebody to, to help them exit the industry is, is also a form
00:20:09.180
of a subsidy, but this was used and you're correct.
00:20:12.460
It was used in places like Australia, where the supply managed system that once existed
00:20:18.520
was phased out over a period of time and consumers helped to finance that.
00:20:24.920
So in view of helping farmers transition to a more open market, there is a surcharge levied
00:20:33.360
on consumers at retail level that helped finance the transition for primary producers of raw milk
00:20:42.860
So this enabled them to move with, I guess, less financial pain for the producers than would
00:20:54.860
But it's a great example of Mansur Olson's, you know, the logic of collective action.
00:21:00.200
In these circumstances, there's a small number of beneficiaries who have a very concentrated
00:21:05.280
self-interest in maintaining the status quo, where the costs are dispersed, on the other
00:21:13.500
So you were mentioning in the introduction, you know, we pay higher prices, Canadians, depending
00:21:18.600
on where you're located, pay higher prices for, for supply managed products in the grocery
00:21:26.180
That's one that's been in the headlines a lot and fluid milk and, and, and so on.
00:21:30.680
And yeah, we, we do, we do pay some higher prices for that, but most people are more concerned
00:21:41.540
So yeah, maybe I'm paying 50 cents, 75 cents more for a gallon of milk at the grocery store.
00:21:47.940
I'm not going to get too much in a twist about that.
00:21:50.360
Whereas a dairy producer, a raw milk producer would if, if a supply management was terminated,
00:21:56.000
There's a big impact on, on the, on their enterprise compared to a few dollars a week
00:22:07.720
Well, it's always though that case gets made, oh, it's just a cup of coffee a day.
00:22:11.200
It's just a little bit here and a little bit there, but that, that's what suddenly we find.
00:22:17.640
Um, and it also adds up for the, for producers themselves, right?
00:22:23.500
So when you're insulated from, from international competition, uh, you don't fit, you don't have
00:22:28.620
the same incentives in terms of, uh, changing your business and, um, uh, in terms of processors
00:22:35.760
in Canada, uh, producing the products that consumers want, right?
00:22:40.620
If you're selling into a protected market, you don't face the same incentives as others who,
00:22:45.800
uh, who have to, who, who, who compete not with, uh, just their next door neighbors and
00:22:51.680
other processors or producers domestically, but it's international competition.
00:22:56.720
So I, uh, one takeaway is that, uh, while people often say, well, supply management has
00:23:03.560
been put in place to, uh, to help support and protect the, the, um, the, uh, the farmer
00:23:12.140
In fact, uh, these barriers to trade, uh, protect farmers in Canada from their fellow
00:23:18.680
Canadians and the, and the decisions that they would make in terms of the goods that
00:23:23.300
they would produce if they were left free to do so, if there weren't impediments to
00:23:28.780
Well, we're right back to the beginning statements you said, you know, in a true free market,
00:23:32.420
both the buyer and the seller are going to benefit if they're just allowed to, to deal
00:23:37.320
I think of back an example with the wheat board, there was a group in Saskatchewan when
00:23:42.040
we still had the wheat board going and they wanted to start actually a pasta company in
00:23:49.540
If we bypass all these middlemen, we can come up with a really good product and employ
00:23:53.500
some local people and, uh, you know, diversify what we do.
00:23:57.600
But it turns out they would have had to sell their wheat to the wheat board, buy it back to
00:24:01.220
the wheat from the wheat board at an inflated price.
00:24:07.060
But I mean, talking about with, uh, I guess, supply managed industries, it stifles creativity.
00:24:12.180
I mean, there's a lot of producers probably have some good ideas or areas where they can
00:24:15.800
broaden what they do, but they're pretty constrained with where they're sitting.
00:24:20.340
In fact, the, the only, and raw milk is the most stringent of all of them, all of these
00:24:27.660
The only legal buyer of raw milk in every province is the provincial milk marketing board.
00:24:34.860
It's, uh, while a farmer can consume raw milk that he or she has produced on their own enterprise,
00:24:42.000
uh, they're precluded legally from selling that raw milk to anybody else other than the
00:24:50.080
Um, and that's not true for the other supply managed commodities, which is why when you go
00:24:55.920
out to, uh, a farmer's market, or you might see some, uh, uh, some very small producers
00:25:02.880
that have small flocks of chicken, they can sell directly to consumers or eggs, right?
00:25:08.080
You can have a roadside stand, sell, sell farm, fresh eggs, as long as you're not of, of commercial
00:25:14.440
And every province specifies what that threshold is.
00:25:19.420
Uh, and some provinces it's, it's, it's actually quite a big number and other places it's small,
00:25:24.540
but raw milk is the only one where that, uh, opportunity for a, for a primary producer
00:25:30.380
doesn't exist to sell something that they have produced themselves, that they cannot legally
00:25:36.140
sell that to anybody else except a government agency.
00:25:42.040
I I've talked on this show about before my wife grew up on a small dairy farm, but her
00:25:45.420
father only had a quota for cream and so he would skim the cream.
00:25:49.920
He would sell that the household would drink as much milk as they could feed some to the
00:25:53.280
pigs, but the rest would get dumped because it was illegal to sell the milk.
00:25:56.880
And that was, it's illegal to sell the milk, but we want to be careful, right?
00:26:02.100
So with respect to that high profile case that fell in Ontario, who is video recorded himself
00:26:11.100
There isn't a single producer in Canada that hasn't done that at one time or another, right?
00:26:16.020
There's a quality issue where the milk has to be dumped or you it's, it's the less expensive
00:26:22.560
If, if producers supply more than their, their, their quota allotment, uh, they're penalized.
00:26:32.480
So the best course of action is to, to dump a little bit now, um, in this particular case,
00:26:40.400
the timing, I suppose was very bad because, uh, uh, you know, just coming through the pandemic
00:26:46.780
and, and prices for commodities or, uh, uh, uh, prices for, for groceries were quite high.
00:26:53.460
And this poor fellow has, has to dump his milk because, uh, he's produced too much of it.
00:26:58.140
So it was, uh, the optics weren't very good, but he was making a point.
00:27:02.740
Uh, he certainly, and I mean, uh, you know, social media gives a new way to make a point
00:27:06.400
rather than, than just say, uh, or transferring the oral stories like I did with my wife, for
00:27:11.540
So, I mean, getting a little into the political side though, and that, you know, that's,
00:27:14.700
it's the dairy cartels, if you want to call them such a very, very effective political
00:27:20.560
They, they influence parties of all stripes, uh, they protect that supply management system
00:27:28.120
Uh, do you think there's ever going to be a political will to start easing out of it?
00:27:33.120
I, I interviewed all of the conservative leadership candidates back when they were running for the
00:27:36.700
leadership and only one of them said he would challenge the supply management system.
00:27:40.240
Not another, the others were all terrified as soon as it came up.
00:27:43.400
No, one of the, one of the things that we do know in this country is that, uh, uh, to their
00:27:48.500
credit, they have one of the most effective lobbying organizations around, right?
00:27:54.080
Uh, and that this is manifest itself in, in some of the, uh, subsidies that the producers
00:28:00.440
are now receiving because of, uh, trade agreements.
00:28:04.700
The federal government has signed with the European union, with the trans-Pacific partnership,
00:28:09.660
and more recently, the Canadian U S, uh, free trade agreement, NAFTA 2.0, right?
00:28:16.960
Uh, producers of supply managed commodities are, are, are receiving subsidies for lost market
00:28:23.480
share, uh, as a consequence of, of signing these agreements.
00:28:28.420
When in fact, there's very little evidence to suggest that, uh, that there has been market
00:28:34.120
share that, that they've lost in New Zealand and the U S are, are currently, uh, they've got
00:28:39.720
a case that, uh, uh, the, the amount of access that's, that has been set aside, uh, isn't
00:28:48.880
So, um, raw milk production this past may was set record level.
00:28:55.560
So that, you know, we're producing as much as, as we have ever have in this country of
00:29:02.720
Uh, there's never been fewer primary producers of supply managed commodities.
00:29:07.340
There's fewer than 10,000 raw milk producers now in this country.
00:29:11.660
There's fewer than 500 dairy farms in the province of Alberta.
00:29:16.880
Uh, and there's about a, you know, a couple of thousand, uh, primary producers of the other
00:29:23.400
So in terms of the politics, getting back to your point, there's, there's, uh, maybe,
00:29:28.260
uh, 12,000, 13,000 producers of, of supply managed commodities that wield enormous political
00:29:38.020
I mean, some people, uh, defenders of the supply management policy said it helps protect
00:29:42.240
Now I wouldn't necessarily blame supply management, but at least evolution and economies of scale.
00:29:46.820
I mean, it used to be over a hundred thousand producers, I believe a couple of decades ago,
00:29:50.560
and now it's contracted down to, as you said, about 12,000.
00:29:53.420
So they are becoming just, uh, of necessity, larger corporate enterprises, uh, the romanticized
00:30:03.720
Well, we'll, we'll see if we can start solving these.
00:30:06.140
Like I said, a lot of people, when you, you, you talk about supply management, though, the
00:30:10.340
And then as there's not a lot of will on the ground necessarily from the public, but it
00:30:16.720
And I think it's important to remember all the people involved.
00:30:21.600
Uh, there, there are beneficiaries of the continuation of this policy.
00:30:25.980
And there are people that do stand to lose at least in the short term.
00:30:29.480
Uh, so, um, one of the things that's really important in economics is that there isn't this
00:30:35.500
royal, we there's you and I, and each of us make our own decisions with respect to what
00:30:40.980
we produce, what we consume and whom we, we interact with.
00:30:44.840
Well, I'll have to avoid triggering you with that.
00:30:54.280
So, uh, before I let you go, where, where can people find your stuff?
00:30:56.740
I know you've done some work with the Fraser Institute and you're at the university of
00:31:00.740
Uh, did you write further publications or anything like that?
00:31:02.980
Um, I do on occasion, if you do, uh, uh, if you want to find me online, go to the university
00:31:11.620
Um, I coordinate the agricultural studies program here.
00:31:15.080
And, uh, as you mentioned at the outset, one of the, my areas of interest is, uh, agricultural
00:31:23.800
And, uh, that's certainly, uh, has, it's very important in Canada with, uh, supply managed
00:31:30.260
And of course, in Southern Alberta, where we are, it's, it's a particularly important for,
00:31:35.200
uh, beef and for grains and oil seeds and crops grown under irrigation, lots of issues
00:31:40.860
in agriculture and agri-food and lots of opportunity.
00:31:45.440
No, there's a much more than we could cover in 15 minutes.
00:31:48.560
I hope we can have you on again to talk about these kinds of things down the road then.
00:32:00.580
So that was Dr. Danny Leroy, yes, from the university of Lethbridge in there.
00:32:03.980
So you've gotten my torqued and wound up, uh, rants about supply management and things
00:32:07.740
like that, but I'm bringing in a, a reasoned and educated individual to talk about those
00:32:12.100
policies and, and they, they do impact everybody, whether we want to talk about them or not.
00:32:18.780
It's, it's interesting to see, uh, as we said, it started with good intentions, but again,
00:32:22.560
so many bad policies always do start with, uh, I think noble intentions.
00:32:27.100
And, and, uh, it was good to have some balance pointing out there's, there's going to be, uh,
00:32:32.280
And, uh, I guess you could say, you know, people who certainly don't benefit if it changes, it's
00:32:37.600
good to see a free market person speaking, uh, from a university though, and coming out of those
00:32:42.380
spots and, and, you know, breaking a bit of that mold of what we're seeing from academia these days.
00:32:46.920
I, I guess when you're in economics and agriculture, I mean, you've got to be a common
00:32:50.380
sense grounded sort of person to, to maintain what you're doing.
00:32:55.160
Uh, Dave mentioned that, uh, with the news check in earlier, you know, and it kind of
00:32:58.700
ties into that Dr. Jordan Peterson, the Ontario court has, uh, upheld, uh, I guess, you know,
00:33:06.420
the, the, I don't know if you'd call it a ruling, but that you see what has happened is the cancel
00:33:22.040
All he did university of Toronto though, as a psychologist, a professor was dared when he was
00:33:26.600
mandated, people were saying, you've got to start referring to individuals as Z and Zer.
00:33:43.960
And they screamed and they threatened and other professors sanctioned them and wrote up things
00:33:48.840
And he still, the thing that drives them so mad with Peterson is that he won't apologize.
00:34:02.540
And the other part is, ironically, and I know, you know, Dr. Peterson was already a successful
00:34:07.720
But boy, it took him and turned him into an international celebrity because people found
00:34:13.560
They found an academic speaking out about political correctness and speaking out against identity
00:34:18.520
politics and speaking out about how stupid it is to call somebody Z or Zer, much less to
00:34:30.120
Hey, if you want to be called Z, Zer, you know, if you ask me politely, I'll say so.
00:34:35.240
I'll call you an artichoke if that's your preference, but don't tell me what I have to
00:34:47.200
He was speaking to sold out functions all over North America, around the world.
00:34:57.020
How can we dare, you know, get this man who dared to break orthodoxy?
00:35:01.080
Then they realized we can go after his professional association.
00:35:10.940
He's a, you know, a licensed registered psychologist.
00:35:19.100
And of course, you'll get these professional associations.
00:35:21.380
They get scared fast and they get scared easily.
00:35:26.860
They said, you, Dr. Peterson, must take this course on social media behavior and sensitivity
00:35:43.560
But I mean, the association, the only time they should be sanctioning is if he was truly
00:35:49.240
If he was being a pervert online, if he was breaking laws, if he was abusing people, what
00:35:56.260
he was doing was speaking out with a view they didn't agree with.
00:36:01.020
You got to remember these associations are populated and managed by the nutless.
00:36:05.800
I tell you, I know this from working in the oil field.
00:36:08.760
Because, you know, when you get these professional associations, even in the energy sector, private
00:36:13.440
market, and they get these industry associations and they got to hold a conference once a month
00:36:19.160
or do this and do that, you don't send your best and brightest to sit on the boards of
00:36:24.400
You send the brother-in-law you were forced to hire because, you know, get him out of my
00:36:29.080
And, you know, put him to work doing something else.
00:36:31.640
Unfortunately, when the oil companies are sending their dead weight all to these associations,
00:36:35.700
then these associations, of course, tend to be dominated and populated by morons and cowards
00:36:43.400
Get the woke guy out of your boardroom and stick him out, you know, spending some time
00:36:48.500
That's great until that association turns on you.
00:36:54.800
He dared to point out with an overweight woman and say, he doesn't look attractive.
00:37:07.700
And yes, he's questioned some of the trans-orthodoxy.
00:37:14.480
The Ontario court ruled today and said, no, they are allowed to basically say, either we're
00:37:20.280
going to pull your license, you will no longer be a practicing psychologist, or you go to this
00:37:31.500
We will tell you what you're supposed to think, and most certainly what you're supposed to
00:37:36.560
And it sounds already like Peterson said, nah, get stuffed.
00:37:47.640
It's a point of principle at this point, but it's a big point of principle.
00:37:50.240
And not everybody can afford to stand up to the council mob when they turn their head
00:37:58.460
Some people can and do get bankrupted once that mob gets swirling around them, those unrelenting
00:38:09.360
You know, being on the Cowboy Network and everything, we are, you know, still under the
00:38:15.380
But the court held it up, said, yes, you can take away this man's career because he
00:38:25.460
And you know, those frothing, self-important jerks who feel they should control the speech
00:38:29.540
and thought of others are just tickled pink right now.
00:38:46.260
So this was a big, big deal with that court ruling today.
00:38:52.580
I think they threw it out because he was challenging against it.
00:38:57.400
And look at some of the stuff that we won't be allowed to.
00:39:04.380
But people won't be able to speak out without a punishment on a lot of issues when comments
00:39:11.720
And that case Dave mentioned with the power lifter.
00:39:22.940
He suddenly said, I'm going to identify as a woman and enter a sport that is clearly,
00:39:30.840
There's a huge advantage to being male when you go into that power lifting.
00:39:39.640
God, the loony left likes to tell us to follow the science.
00:39:45.740
Men, that's why we broke up athletic events on gender.
00:39:52.760
So this man came in, and he didn't just beat the women who'd spent all that time, did all
00:39:57.860
that work, all that dedication, training for this event.
00:40:04.420
And I guess it's something where you squat and deadlift.
00:40:08.900
I'm sure most of the women in that event, the real women, would still outlift and beat
00:40:14.440
But when you're getting to the high levels of these things, you know, men who do that
00:40:21.780
So by 200 pounds over the next closest woman, 200 pounds, like it just completely removed
00:40:49.840
This is getting towards the end game of the woke.
00:40:55.240
I mean, the woke began with women back in the 60s and 70s when they weren't getting rights
00:41:02.160
When they were being underpaid for the same job that men were doing and things like that.
00:41:09.080
Women were being left to hang if a husband took off on them.
00:41:14.040
But now it's come all the way around, all the way around, and the woman loses her rights
00:41:20.620
I think today I'm going to identify as a woman.
00:41:22.680
We're not even talking about somebody who's dedicated a life to being trans.
00:41:26.660
We're not talking about somebody who's had, of course, some of the surgical or drug transitioning
00:41:32.420
or any of those things changed their lifestyle.
00:41:34.440
They just have to say, sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't.
00:41:40.760
That's, yeah, I'm going to lay off the nut thing for a bit here.
00:41:49.940
And at least some of these sporting associations are saying that's enough.
00:41:55.360
I'm forgetting some of the names, but, you know, the case in the States with that man
00:41:59.040
who's down there swimming and blowing all the women out of the water as far as the races
00:42:04.100
go, you know, defeating them all over the place down there.
00:42:07.960
And one of the competing women dared to speak out.
00:42:14.880
And plus, he's standing around in the change room.
00:42:16.840
I turn around and there's male parts behind my head because this is a fully intact man.
00:42:26.660
Somebody who identifies as a her who's truly trans, wants to live that way, absolutely.
00:42:34.100
Who couldn't make it in his own gender competitions.
00:42:44.120
It is almost a form of beating women, isn't it?
00:42:45.940
We saw that case, and I guess it did turn out there was some truth.
00:42:53.840
We're supposed to say there isn't an inherent advantage.
00:42:59.440
You know, the best of all was that purple-haired soccer beast from the United States.
00:43:04.860
I can't remember her name, but she was the woke of the woke and, you know, heading the
00:43:12.240
And saying, you know, on these trans issues and all the rest.
00:43:14.500
But her team, her top women's team in all of the United States, I believe they were the
00:43:19.380
top in the world at one point, got beaten by a high school team of boys.
00:43:27.440
I mean, these were highly trained women, fantastic players, but they can't step over that physiological
00:43:34.060
reality that male bodies, physiques in those kinds of sports have an advantage.
00:43:45.360
I mean, somebody else was talking about going into the WNBA, you know, the basketball.
00:43:49.860
Again, look at the tallest man ever and the tallest woman.
00:43:54.820
Now, getting back on a side rant about this whole thing, this is what the cancel crowd
00:44:03.900
Somebody saying that man shouldn't be competing against women in a sport might suddenly get
00:44:09.720
They might get phone calls to their professional association saying, sanction this person.
00:44:16.760
This person doesn't deserve to earn a living because they hurt my feelings by stating physiological
00:44:23.860
And the courts, by the precedent that Ontario has set, say, yeah, that's perfectly fine.
00:44:29.720
Go on welfare, I guess, or find a new, or of course, or of course, go for re-education.
00:44:59.560
But protect that right for not just academics, but it's pretty important with the academics,
00:45:05.420
but for everybody to speak out on these things.
00:45:14.240
It doesn't matter if you try to pander to them.
00:45:17.000
It doesn't matter if you try to, you know, stay woke.
00:45:26.940
And the courts are affirming these hyenas, and it's disgusting.
00:45:30.800
We've got to speak up, guys, because they will come for you.
00:45:38.300
Well, that kind of eats up a lot of the time today, guys.
00:45:47.460
Get on there, westernstandard.news slash membership.
00:46:06.060
and we can keep talking about things that the other outlets are just too cowardly to address,
00:46:15.360
Thanks for joining me today, and I will see you all again next week at this time.
00:46:19.140
Here's an update on commodity prices in Lethbridge, where we've had about an inch of rain over
00:46:28.020
Feed wheat is steady at $3.79, and corn is down $5 at $3.76 per metric tonne.
00:46:33.240
In the milling wheat market, September Minneapolis futures added $9.5 at $7.83 per bushel,
00:46:40.080
with local hardwood spring bid for August movement at $10 per bushel.
00:46:44.100
Looking at canola, November futures are higher at $6.40 at $8.02.40 per tonne,
00:46:49.580
with delivered vice for September movement at $1,785 per bushel.
00:46:53.700
In the pulse markets, nearby red lentil prices remain at $0.33 per pound,
00:46:57.940
and yellow peas are trading at $10.20 per bushel.
00:47:00.180
And looking at cattle, October live cattle are up $0.35 at $1.78.30 per hundred weight.
00:47:07.380
For more information on pricing or picked up options, give me a call at 403-394-1711.
00:47:16.720
Accurate, real-time marketing information and pricing options.
00:47:22.840
Without the CSSA, our gun rights would have been taken long, long ago.
00:47:27.200
These guys are on the front lines, helping to draft smart and intelligent firearms regulations and legislation in Canada.
00:47:35.080
And more importantly, educating the public about how we keep guns out of the hands of the wrong people.
00:47:40.400
To become a member, it's absolutely worth every penny.