CBC or should I say CNN North never quits promoting Trump's Circus N'esy Pas?

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/donald-trump-milk-tariffs-fact-check-1.4709326

Trump's fixation on 270% milk tariffs, FBI texts shows how he 'cherry-picks' truths to justify actions

'He takes that kernel of truth, he cherry-picks something — and it's repetition, repetition, repetition'

2475 Comments 
Commenting is now closed for this story.

 

Peter Alward

It is ironic how Trump blasts fake news while at the same being its number one practitioner.

Sandy Gillis

@Lou Parks
Apparently you have the same issue as Trump and the media Lou, you're only picking out the parts of the story to fit your narrative. What about:

- Trump was elected to serve the public interest, members of the media are hired to create earnings for their employers. They should not be held to the same standard of trust, because they are not in the same position of trust.

- Members of the media are not accumulating personal wealth at the taxpayer's expense for decisions they make on the job (i.e. Trump's earnings from rental incomes on real estate, golf carts, etc. as only one example out of many).

- Members of the media are not able to singlehandedly swing stock values of particular corporations wildly with well timed tweets, and don't have weekly dinners with their not-even-near-sighted-let-alone-blind-trustees (aka his kids) running his stock portfolio.

- Members of the media are not able to order assassinations in foreign countries as favours to business associates (i.e. the raids in Yemen at the behest of his good friends in Riyadh).

David Amos

@Sandy Gillis "Apparently you have the same issue as Trump and the media Lou, you're only picking out the parts of the story to fit your narrative."

Methinks you must have heard that snobby people who live in glass houses should not chuck rocks N'esy Pas?

David Amos

@Sandy Gillis Do tell have you even bothered to Google the following YET?

Trump Cohen NAFTA TPP FATCA David Amos

Sandy Gillis

@David Amos
No, why would I? Your constant pleas for attention and demands that people Google you are obviously just juvenile attention seeking behaviours. Playing your silly games would just be enabling you and delaying your much needed maturation.

David Amos

@Sandy Gillis Methinks I should thank you for proving my point about your motives N'esy Pas?

Sandy Gillis

@David Amos
Whatever makes you happy David.

David Amos

@Sandy Gillis Methinks some folks would get quite a chuckle if they were to Google your name and mine N'esy Pas?

Sandy Gillis

@David Amos
I don't know David, the only time I've ever had any contact with you whatsoever is right here on CBC. It is the internet of course, I suppose you could have written all sorts of hilarious things and put both of our names on it, but I hope you have better things to do with your time than that.

David Amos

@Sandy Gillis Methinks you should address me as Mr Amos because the last thing we are is friends However you certainly know who I am just like I figured out who you were when you libeled me. Now for obvious reasons I would like to know who your lawyer is N'esy Pas?

Sandy Gillis

@David Amos
I'll tell you what, you claim to have "figured out" who I am, how about you give me a call, send me an email, mail me a letter, whatever you like, with your silly demands for a lawyer.

David Amos

@Sandy Gillis Well I picked up the phone and called another Sandy whom I truly thought you were before I sent them and the RCMP the email you requested. I was mistaken again. So now I will just contact the RCMP because I don't believe that is your real name. You do understand I saved all your prior comments and no doubt your lawyer is well aware of Section 300 of the Canadian Criminal Code Correct?

David Amos

@Sandy Gillis This is the text of my latest Tweet about you with the appropriate links

"Methinks the Troll "Sandy Gillis" knows that its kinda obvious that CBC or should I say CNN North never quits promoting Trump's Circus for the benefit of the LIEbranos N'esy Pas?"

Sandy Gillis

@David Amos
How wonderful for you David, l hope you have tonnes of fun with all that. Before you do anything silly to cost yourself any serious money, however, I would strongly suggest you ask a lawyer to explain the difference between libel and me giving my opinion of you. I haven't made any claims about you, I simply said that I think you're a silly, immature attention seeker who seems obsessed with getting people to Google him.

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David Amos

@Sandy Gillis This is the text of my latest Tweet about you with the appropriate links

"Methinks the Troll "Sandy Gillis" knows that its kinda obvious that CBC or should I say CNN North never quits promoting Trump's Circus for the benefit of the LIEbranos N'esy Pas?"

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David Amos

@Sandy Gillis I may not know who you are but it is clear what you are. It will be the cop's job to track you down I will sue CBC because of what went on in their domain. BTW I saved the comments of yours that your CBC?VIAFOURA friends deleted in CBC just like the one of mine they just blocked. Trust I don't care if this is blocked as well after what went on over the past year.

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David Amos

@Sandy Gillis Methinks it makes no sense trying to reply when I am blocked by your pals N'esy Pas?

David Amos

@Sandy Gillis "Before you do anything silly to cost yourself any serious money, however, I would strongly suggest you ask a lawyer to explain the difference between libel and me giving my opinion of you"

Too Too Funny Methinks everybody knows that I don't need a lawyer N'esy Pas?

 
Evan Mulligan

Aaaaannnndddd... here come the trumpeters, complaining about the media...

David Amos

@Evan Mulligan "here come the trumpeters, complaining about the media."

Methinks its only proper that they do N'esy Pas?.

David Amos

@Lou Parks "We shall see about that"

YUP

  
Jackson Thomson

Trump's faithful are easily conned, as partisan sheep tend to be.

David Amos

@Jackson Thomson Methinks the same could be said of the peoplekind who adore the drama teacher with the strange costumes and eyebrows N'esy Pas?

  
Alex Matheson

Much like a snail, Trump leaves a track of slime everywhere he goes. Everything about the guy screams dishonest and self serving. Yet 41% of Americans voters support him. That says an awful lot about just how backward America still is in their political thinking.

Richard Donald

@Alex Matheson

50.4 % of Americans approve of Trump's economic performance. source: RCP Polling average

David Amos

@Richard Donald Methinks that is supposed to be a secret in CBC N'esy Pas?

 

Tommy Gunn

Trump has done what no president has done before...made America the laughing stock of the world.

David Amos

@Tommy Gunn "Trump has done what no president has done before...made America the laughing stock of the world"

Methinks everybody loves a circus N'esy Pas?

  
Neal Larter

Be very careful my friends in the USA this man will turn America into 1940 Germany. I really fear for Canadians and Americans under his rule. Holy hell he is supposed to represent America, not rule it.

michael flinn

@ Chris Maurier Nah - Doona Brazille and Debbie Schultz tries that and it didn't work out to well for them.

David Amos

@michael flinn True

  
Charles Beale

Trump's 'truths' come out of thin air - a threat to the entire free world.

Myles Grant

@Charles Beale Trump just gets up in the morning and decides "I'm bored: let's see, what can I wreck today?" A long-standing relationship with a friendly ally? Check. A peaceful trade relationship with a fellow democracy? Check. He just smashes anything that other countries took a long time building: NATO, NAFTA, whatever. He is a dangerous, deluded bully.

David Amos

@Myles Grant Methinks a lot of folks agree that NATO, and NAFTA should have went the way of the Dodo Bird long ago N'esy Pas?

  
Jason Martin

The fact of the matter is Trump is a nutter, plain and simple.

Rob Scott

@Jason Martin

Not so simple; he's a nutter with the nuclear codes.

David Amos

@Rob Scott YUP

  







Paul Pedersen

Truth is anathema to Trump. At the end of the day he is the one who has launched an all out trade war on Canada, belittled it and has openly stated his desire to make 'Canadians pay' for his perceived and, yes, false slights. I'd rather we keep the focus on that than his many other daily laundry list of falsehoods and ridiculous pronouncements.

David Amos

@Paul Pedersen "Truth is anathema to Trump."

Methinks one can apply that statement to all politicians and lawyers N'esy Pas?

 
Bob Lashram

Everybody knows Trump unashamedly twists truth to support his political agenda...but so do all politicians including our own...It's just that Trump doesn't put much effort into trying to hide his manipulation of truth and really doesn't care if he's caught in his spin...

David Amos

@Bob Lashram I wholeheartedly agree sir

 http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-supply-management-explainer-1.4708341

It's been blamed for inflating food prices - but a lot of American producers wish they had something like it

John Paul Tasker · CBC News · Posted: Jun 16, 2018 4:00 AM ET

865 Comments 
Commenting is now closed for this story.

 
Roland Reimer

Of course farmers support supply management. It benefits them. It creates a system where they control the supply and virtually set the prices.
It's a cartel, consumers get hosed.

David Amos

@Roland Reimer Methinks Andy Baby Scheer is nervous about the fact that I talked to Maxime Bernier's assistant and emailed both of them just before he gave the lawyer the boot from his shadow cabinet N'esy Pas?

  
Paul O'Donovan

The average small and medium sized US dairy farmer supports a system like we have in Canada. In Wisconsin for example thousands of family farms have been put out of business by big agra because of massive overproduction. The US tax payer is funding over production and the dumping of millions of gallons of milk a year. Our system is better for everyone in Canada.

David Amos

@Paul O'Donovan "The average small and medium sized US dairy farmer supports a system like we have in Canada"

I believe that is true.

  

Benji Higgins

Canadians are getting ripped off by our own government and by rich dairy-producing families in Ontario and Quebec.

Canada, the land of monopolies.

David Amos

@Benji Higgins "Canada, the land of monopolies."

YUP

 

Lea Anderson

I suggest all those knocking our system of supply management do some actual research instead of just spouting nonsense. A little real education on the subject goes a long way.

David Amos

@Lea Anderson "A little real education on the subject goes a long way."

Methinks everybody knows that I have been looking into it quite closely lately N'esy Pas?

John Oaktree

@David Amos

What do messy paws have to do with anything??

That is what the gibberish at the end says - isn't it??

 
Rod Begin

All this to protect Quebec farmers, there is pretty simple to fix, tell Trudeau they’re Alberta farmers. Trudeau would have no issue throwing Alberta farmers under the bus!

Miles Long

@Darryl Gregorash I don't know about that the dairy cartel is evolving into a fontera look-alike with involvement in things like agropur.

David Amos

@Miles Long Methinks I should holler BINGO anytime somebody mentions Agropur N'esy Pas?

John Oaktree

@David Amos

You lost me at the end of your message. What is that gibberish??

  
Evan Mulligan

One has to remember that the days of Ma & Pa Kettle, with a dozen dairy cows, chickens scratching in the yard and brayng sheep placidy munching grass in a sunny meadow are over. The dairy sector is a multi-billion dollar industry complete with teams of lawyers, lobbyists, management consultants and accountants. The image they they to portray as the "family farm" hasn't existed in decent numbers in a generation.

David Amos 

@Evan Mulligan "The dairy sector is a multi-billion dollar industry complete with teams of lawyers, lobbyists, management consultants and accountants."

Robert Stringer

@David Amos ""The dairy sector is a multi-billion dollar industry complete with teams of lawyers, lobbyists, management consultants and accountants."

and they are all Canadian! Keeping profits in Canada

 
Buford Wilson

The marketing boards have been robbing Canadians blind for decades.

Time to shut the racket down.

David Amos

@Charly Vaughan "the end is near for Rural Canada and the conservatives"

Yea Right

Methinks snobby city people should listen to Hank Williams Jr sing a tune about how Country Folks Can Survive. Trust that a lot of Proud Maritimers agree with that Southern Man N'esy Pas?

 

Neil Gregory

Excellent article!

David Amos

@Neil Gregory Methinks its too bad so sad for us all that CBC refrains from telling us everything they know N'esy Pas?

Andrew Hebda (NS)

How does matching the market price to the price of production inflate the price? The price of milk in the US (as with many of their other agricultural commodities) is not the true cost of production.. but rather the result of a whole suite of production (and other) subsidies (although they do not call them that).

As a farmer, I continually hear the mantra of costs hurting the poor. I donate product from our farm regularly, as many other Canadian farmers do. However, the subsidizing of low income Canadians is something that should be borne by all Canadians. The ones on the top of the economic "manure pile" have benefitted from the system. The issue is one of wealth redistribution.. not of farmers getting a fair return for hard work..

David Amos

@Andrew Hebda (NS) "The ones on the top of the economic "manure pile" have benefitted from the system. The issue is one of wealth redistribution.. not of farmers getting a fair return for hard work."

I agree

  
Miles Long

Bernier's chapter on supply management is on his website. I remember when the dairy system was being implemented that it would help save small farms, back then there were approximately 114,000 dairy farms now there are just undet 11,000. We are giving up too much in international trade negotiations to protect the cartels we have created.

David Amos

@Miles Long "I remember when the dairy system was being implemented that it would help save small farms, back then there were approximately 114,000 dairy farms now there are just undet 11,000. "

Methinks a lot of people still remember those days not just the sneaky lawyer Maxime Bernier N'esy Pas?

David Amos

@Miles Long Methinks it should not be rocket science for the folks giving me the down votes to simply Google two names N'esy Pas?

Anyone cut and paste

Maxime Bernier David Amos

into their favourite search engine and click go

Trump's fixation on 270% milk tariffs, FBI texts shows how he 'cherry-picks' truths to justify actions

'He takes that kernel of truth, he cherry-picks something — and it's repetition, repetition, repetition'

Matt Kwong · CBC News · Posted: Jun 16, 2018 4:00 AM ET 

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters on the lawn of the White House on Friday. (Evan Vucci/Associated Press)


When Donald Trump has a point, expect him to pound it into submission.

From the White House lawn on Friday morning, the U.S. President mischaracterized the findings of a new Department of Justice report about misconduct in the FBI during the Hillary Clinton emails probe. But he also told some selective truths — chiefly about some inappropriate anti-Trump texts between FBI officials outlined in the inspector general's report.

That's arguably trickier to untangle.

And that's likely just the way the president likes it, says Republican strategist Evan Siegfried.
"He takes that kernel of truth, he cherry-picks something — and it's repetition, repetition, repetition," he said. "It's all about strategically positioning himself."

The same tactic of zeroing in on one point to imply massive systemic cheating was apparently used to justify a trade war with Canada. While the larger subtext was warnings by most economists that a trade war would be self-harming, Trump latched on to an alarming-sounding statistic about Canada's levies on some dairy products.

It's misdirection disguised as conservative talking points, Siegfried said.

When it succeeds, it seems it's the only talking point that matters to the Trump faithful, pundits say, and the argument often alludes to a "deep state" conspiracy alleging a secret plot by government agents to curtail Trump's power.

Here's how Trump's selective truths have worked for him so far:

---

Trump's chosen fact: FBI officials exchanged biased text messages.

 

A report earlier this week from the U.S. Justice Department's watchdog slammed the FBI and former director James Comey for their handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation. But it did not conclude Comey's actions were motivated by political bias. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

The new Justice Department report revealed that two FBI officials — an agent and a lawyer — were found to have exchanged inappropriate text messages regarding Trump in the lead-up to the 2016 election. When lawyer Lisa Page expressed concerns Trump would be elected president, agent Peter Strzok wrote back: "We'll stop him."

Trump alleged "total bias" toward him and that it's possible the entire bureau was therefore "plotting against my election."

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The mental leap for the Trump faithful: An example of anti-Trump sentiment two years ago in the FBI means special counsel Robert Mueller's ongoing probe into possible Russian collusion with the Trump campaign is compromised. Mueller should be suspended.

How it's playing to Trump voters: "It's the establishment. What do they call it? The deep state," said Bill Berdan, 68, a Trump supporter from Folsom, Calif. "That's the whole intent of the whole thing: is to get in the way and thwart Trump's ability to govern or implement change."

To Berdan, the text messages are "displaying evidence of" malicious actors in the government eager to bring down Trump, he said. His wife, Kimala, added that the conspiracy "has been going on for a long time — before his presidency." She said she believes anti-Trump elements have been operating from "within the FBI, the CIA, the Senate and Congress, everybody."

Why it's not so simple: The inspector general who authored the report concluded there was no evidence Strzok abused his position to persecute the president. The report also found there was no evidence that "improper considerations, including political bias" directly affected specific investigative decision by the FBI as a whole.

Mueller removed Strzok from his team upon learning about the messages. Page told investigators the conversation was carried out on their work phones because she and Strzok were having an extra-marital affair that they were trying to keep secret from their spouses.

Critics have noted that an effort to use the highly improper text messages as evidence to suggest the entire Department of Justice is corrupt and that the FBI is out to get Trump is disingenuous.

---

Trump's chosen fact: Collusion is not a crime.

 

Robert Mueller speaks during a news conference at the FBI headquarters in Washington in this 2008 file photo. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Trump has repeated this claim in regards to questions about whether his campaign became involved with Russian agents to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential race. In an interview with The New York Times last December, Trump said: "No. 1, there is no collusion, No. 2, collusion is not a crime, but even if it was a crime, there was no collusion."
And it is true that collusion on its own is not a crime.

The mental leap for the Trump faithful: The subtext is that Mueller's probe into the potential Russian meddling in the 2016 election is a meaningless "witch hunt," and should therefore not be happening.

How it's playing to Trump voters: "There probably was some collusion going on" with the Russians, said Neal Forte, a restaurant owner and Trump voter from Hazleton, Pa., during an interview with CBC News last summer. "But is it even a crime?"

Why it's not so simple: It's still a political scandal. Whether or not collusion with the Russians can be found, the Mueller probe has, in the last 13 months, found evidence of enough crimes to lead to 20 people being charged so far. (Thirteen of those are Russian nationals.)

Also among them is former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who admitted to lying to the FBI, and Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort, charged with conspiracy to launder money and failing to register as a foreign agent, among other things. No one on Trump's campaign team has been charged with a crime directly related to Russian attempts to sway the election.

---

Trump's chosen fact: Canada levies a 270 per cent tariff on U.S. dairy products.

 

Dairy cows rest at a farm in eastern Ontario in this April 2017 file photo. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)

Trump tweeted last week that the U.S. tariffs on Canadian goods is "in response to" the high dairy tariffs. For example, Trump tweeted on June 10: "Fair Trade is now to be called Fool Trade if it is not Reciprocal. According to a Canada release, they make almost 100 Billion Dollars in Trade with U.S. (guess they were bragging and got caught!). Minimum is 17B. Tax Dairy from us at 270%. Then Justin acts hurt when called out!"

The mental leap for the Trump faithful: The figure seems outrageous and the U.S. should apply tariffs to Canada to retaliate. U.S. tariffs are one way to put things back on a level playing field due to a Canadian "cartel" that fixes prices on dairy, proponents of the tariffs say.

How it's playing to Trump voters: "There's an oversupply in the United States of milk. Many of our dairy producers are falling on very tough times," said Dennis Beavers, a former Alabama state director for Trump and a U.S. Department of Agriculture appointee in Tennessee. "I can tell you, we have about 230 mom-and-pop dairies being nearly driven out of the marketplace. And in Tennessee, some of it is because of unfair competition, and some of it is because of how they're being treated in the world marketplace."

• U.S. special counsel probe marks one-year anniversary: Where it's been and where it might lead

Why it's not so simple: Canada operates a complicated "supply management" quota system that's meant to control prices and shelter some dairy products from competition. But it's also true that the U.S. has subsidies and protectionism.

Even if Canada's program seems unfair to Americans, using the "270 per cent" statistic to justify a trade war between two allies ignores a lucrative commercial relationship. Economists warn that a trade war will harm all involved.

---

---

Trump's chosen fact: The Trump campaign was surveilled by the FBI in 2016.

 

Donald Trump's 2016 election campaign was largely run out of Trump Tower in New York. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

While the FBI reportedly sent in an informant to speak with campaign advisers during Trump's 2016 campaign, the contact was only made to investigate possible links between the members of Trump's team and the Kremlin. It was not, as the president asserted, an effort to "spy" on him.

The mental leap for the Trump faithful: Trump dubbed the incident #Spygate anyway, purporting without evidence that his campaign was being targeted in order to help rival Clinton win the presidential election. Trump has tried to use the made-up scandal to bolster his argument that Mueller's investigation into his campaign's ties with Russia should be put to an end.

How it's playing to Trump voters: Although Trump's spying claims are false, the conspiracy has gained traction. On Twitter, one Trump supporter and steel fabricator from New Hampshire shared the far-right "deep state" conspiracist Tom Fitton's calls to shut down Mueller's probe. The Justice Department and FBI, the user commented, "are out of control."

Why it's not so simple: Even South Carolina congressman Trey Gowdy, a Republican firebrand who often supports Trump, dismissed the controversy after seeing some of the background documents as a member of the House Oversight Committee.

"Donald Trump was never the target of the investigation," Gowdy told Fox News, adding that the "FBI did exactly" what Trump already stated he wanted investigators to do, which was find out whether anyone connected with his campaign had colluded with Russia. "I am even more convinced that the FBI did exactly what my fellow citizens would want them to do when they got the information they got, and that it has nothing to do with Donald Trump," Gowdy said.

How Canada's supply management system works

It's been blamed for inflating food prices - but a lot of American producers wish they had something like it

John Paul Tasker · CBC News · Posted: Jun 16, 2018 4:00 AM ET 

Chris Ryan walks dairy cow Ninja on Wellington Street as dairy farmers protest on Parliament Hill on Thursday, June 2, 2016 in Ottawa. (Justin Tang/Canadian Press)



Canada's system of supply management has been the target of heated political debate for the better part of half a century — but very few Canadians outside of the affected farm sectors actually understand how it works, or who foots the bill for stabilizing farmers' incomes.

Supply management is a system that allows specific commodity sectors — dairy, poultry and eggs — to limit the supply of their products to what Canadians are expected to consume in order to ensure predictable, stable prices.

While the federal government has played a role in supporting agricultural pricing policies for more than a century, the current system of supply management traces its origins to the 1960s — a period of overproduction due to technological advances that resulted in low prices for farmers.

While the federal government was keen to support farmers' incomes — and the votes that come with them — direct financial supports became too heavy a burden for the federal treasury to bear.

Bruce Muirhead, a historian at the University of Waterloo who has written extensively about supply management, said the government of the day felt that $50-55 million in annual support payments "would seriously upset the balance of the budget."

"This is one of the reasons we moved to a supply-managed system — government wanted to make farming sustainable on its own," Muirhead writes in his research paper 'Crying Over Spilt Milk'.

The United States, in contrast, has largely maintained support for the farming sector through subsidies. So Americans foot the bill for farm supports indirectly, through the taxes they pay, while Canadians pay for those supports directly, through higher prices for supply-managed products.

According to a Library of Parliament study of supply management, the system rests on three pillars: production control, pricing mechanisms and import control.

First pillar: quotas

Under supply management, a national marketing agency determines production amounts for each commodity and then sets production quotas for each province.

In order to sell their products, a farmer must hold a quota — basically a license to produce up to a set amount. The quota prevent market gluts that would cause prices to dip and disrupt farm incomes.

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As of 2015, there were just over 16,000 quota holders in Canada — most of them dairy farmers in Ontario and Quebec. The quotas initially were given away for free but quickly became quite valuable; Canada's total quota is now valued at over $32 billion.

Muirhead told CBC News that while U.S. President Donald Trump has pushed Canada to dismantle the system to help U.S. farmers, many dairy farmers south of the border look at Canada's system of supply management with envy.

He said Wisconsin farmers in particular are beset by production issues that have caused prices to tank; the state has more cows than all of Canada and produces more milk.

"Those guys are massively in favour of supply management. It would stabilize their industry," he said.

Second pillar: minimum prices

Supply-managed producers are guaranteed a minimum price for their products. Through provincial marketing boards, farmers negotiate minimum "farm gate prices" with processors.

Critics maintain that Canadians pay too much for supply-managed products because the system inflates prices beyond what an open market would impose in order to keep farmers afloat.
But not everyone agrees — and the research is by no means unanimous in its conclusions.

In 2014, a Nielsen Company study commissioned by the Dairy Farmers of Canada showed that the price of Canadian dairy products compared favourably with prices in other countries.

The Montreal Economic Institute, a centre-right think tank, maintains that millions of Canadians are paying artificially high prices to benefit a few thousand farmers. A recent University of Manitoba study concluded that supply management costs wealthy families an average of $554 a year, with lower income families facing an average bill of more than $339 a year as a result of the policy.

"Supply management hurts all 35 million Canadian consumers by forcing them to pay consistently more for milk, chicken and eggs, as well as for other products that use these foodstuffs as ingredients," the institute wrote in a recent report on the matter. "Importantly, supply management disproportionately hurts poor Canadians."

Former Conservative leadership candidate Maxime Bernier, who nearly bested Andrew Scheer in the party's leadership contest last year, has become one of the country's most vocal opponents of supply management.

Maxime Bernier watches during the Conservative Party of Canada leadership convention in Toronto, Ont., on May 27, 2017. (Mark Blinch/Reuters)

"The worst aspect of supply management, however, isn't that all Canadians who buy these products must pay more. It's that the poor, and households with children, are affected the most," Bernier wrote in a chapter from his forthcoming book.

"It should be clear that this is a transfer of wealth from the poorest to some of the richest in our society. Farming families working under supply management are indeed far richer than most Canadian families. Average after-tax income of all households in Canada is $69,100. By comparison, the average dairy farming household income is $147,800, and the number is $180,400 for poultry-farming households."

But dairy farmers point to retail prices for milk in jurisdictions that have deregulated their dairy industries, like the United Kingdom and Australia, as proof that supply management strikes the right balance.

In Australia, for example, prices for milk in the major cities rose 27 cents per litre in the three years after deregulation.

In New Zealand, the largest dairy exporting country in the world, milk prices are higher than they are here in Canada.

Third pillar: high tariffs

The third pillar of supply management is the imposition of high tariffs on foreign imports, a policy that makes these goods prohibitively expensive for Canadians, leaving domestic supply as virtually the only option for consumers.

It's this policy in particular that annoys Trump, who has said the policy is unfair to American farmers.
In fact, the main source of the financial problems plaguing some U.S. dairy operations is overproduction.

Canada sets tariff-rate quotas, meaning some foreign goods — about 10 per cent of Canada's domestic dairy market, for example — enter tariff-free, but all other imports face high tariffs to prevent foreign foods from flooding into the country.

In comparison, the United States gives foreign dairy products access to only 2.75 per cent of its domestic market. Europe offers just 0.5 per cent access for foreign poultry.



 http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-trump-dairy-stunningly-hypocritical-1.4701046

Trump's tearing into Canada's agricultural policy. Does he have a point?

Defenders of supply management say Trump' is 'stunningly hypocritical', given U.S. subsidies

John Paul Tasker · CBC News · Posted: Jun 12, 2018 4:00 AM ET

President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference at the G7 summit Saturday, June 9, 2018, in La Malbaie, Que. (Evan Vucci/AP Photo)



Canadian defenders of the supply management system say U.S. President Donald Trump is "stunningly hypocritical" for attacking dairy supports while politicians in Washington hand out billions in subsidies to American farmers — and levy punishing tariffs of their own on some commodities.

The Canadian dairy industry is at the centre of a brewing trade war between the two allies, in part because of Trump insisting that the decades-old system that uses quotas to ensure dairy supply and stabilize farmers' income is a "disgrace" that is "hurting our Farmers, killing our Agriculture!"

"Looking forward to straightening out unfair Trade Deals with the G-7 countries. If it doesn't happen, we come out even better!" Trump tweeted before touching down in Quebec last week for the G7 summit — a meeting that ended with Trump directing a Twitter tirade against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

"Canada charges the U.S. a 270% tariff on Dairy Products! They didn't tell you that, did they? Not fair to our farmers!"

It's an issue that's been irritating the president since the 2016 election campaign — thanks in part to the savvy lobbying efforts of some dairy farmers in swing-state Wisconsin, who have Trump convinced that Canada's supply-managed dairy system is to blame for hardship in the farm belt.

American hypocrisy knows no bounds. They do exactly the same thing … that they accuse us of doing.- Bruce Muirhead

Bruce Muirhead, an associate vice-president and professor of history at the University of Waterloo, said U.S. woes are not due to a tight Canadian market but rather to massive overproduction that has depressed the prices farmers can fetch for their products.

"They thought they could just produce their way into dairy farmer happiness, which hasn't happened, of course," he said in an interview with CBC News.

Traditionally, U.S. dairy farmers focused on producing for the domestic market, but in the pursuit of growth, producers have ramped up production for export, Muirhead said.

"There is an absolute glut of dairy products around the world. It's a tsunami of milk that is washing over the world and yet the Americans are still increasing production by 1.5 to 2 per cent a year."

More than 100 million gallons of milk were dumped into American farm fields in 2016. The U.S. government bought more than $20 million worth of cheddar cheese because the market was glutted. Dairy farmers, meanwhile, have been drawing on millions of dollars of support from the Dairy Margin Protection Program, a federal initiative that provides catastrophic coverage at a marginal cost to the producer.

Muirhead said Canada shouldn't be expected to dismantle its supply management system (which costs government nothing, since it relies instead on consumers paying more for the product) to accommodate the bad business practices of overzealous U.S. dairy producers.

Cows at a dairy farm in Danville, Que., August 11, 2015. (Ryan Remiorz/Canadian Press)

Alfons Weersink, a professor of agricultural policy at the University of Guelph, said the Americans are desperate for further foreign market access — which explains why they have encouraged Trump to turns the screws on Canada.

"U.S. dairy farmers are experiencing low returns and any way to increase demand, however slight, could help their cause," he said.

These U.S. producers were also wounded by the introduction of new Canadian prices for some products in 2016 — mainly on ingredients used in the production of cheese, yogurt and ice cream. Some American producers have argued the new prices put them at a competitive disadvantage,

"Wisconsin farmers have been particularly vocal," Weersink said. One major Wisconsin processor blamed that price drop for ending buying agreements with dozens of family farms. "There are political reasons for Trump taking it up."

Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau meets with U.S. President Donald Trump at the G7 leaders summit in La Malbaie, Que. Ahead of the G7 summit, Trudeau said 'we will always defend our supply management system.' (Justin Tang/Canadian Press)

But the Dairy Farmers of Canada, the powerful lobby group that vocally defends supply management at every turn, said Canada is simply too small a market to help ease U.S. overproduction concerns.

"Canada already produces enough milk to fill Canadian demand. As Canada has less population than the state of California, and Wisconsin alone produces more milk than all Canadian farms combined, clearly, the Canadian market is too small to make a dent in U.S. overproduction," the president of DFC said in a statement Monday.

On paper, Canada's tariffs on U.S. and other foreign dairy imports — 270 per cent on milk, 245 per cent on cheese and 298 per cent on butter — seem steep.

In fact, dairy is a relatively minor trade issue between Canada and the United States, accounting for just a fraction of the $628 billion in trade the two countries do with each other every year, Weersink said.

"In the big scheme of trade overall, dairy is a minor player (with or without tariffs) but it is an easy target now," he said.

The entire Canada-U.S. dairy trading relationship is valued at just over $750 million a year, according to the latest figures, with American exports to Canada — worth more than $631 million a year — accounting for the vast majority of the goods that cross the border.

In 2016, Canada imported dairy products from the U.S. worth five times more than the small amount it exported.

Muirhead also pointed out that even though Canadian dairy farmers are protected by these high tariffs, imports still make up 10 per cent of the country's domestic dairy consumption, while in the U.S., imports are restricted to just 3 per cent of the dairy market.

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Meanwhile, the U.S. has levied its own tariffs on a host of commodities in an effort to keep foreign imports out.

While the United States — historically an ardent free trader — doesn't levy tariffs on many of the goods entering the country, it has been turning to such measures to strategically boost politically sensitive industries like agriculture since long before Trump launched his "America First" agenda.

"American hypocrisy knows no bounds. They do exactly the same thing ... that they accuse us of doing," Muirhead said.

Take smoking tobacco, for example: it's slapped with a 350 per cent ad valorem tariff as it enters the U.S.

Canadian agriculture is no more subsidized than agriculture in the U.S.- Daniel A. Sumner, University of California

Or unshelled groundnuts (163.8 per cent), or shelled peanuts and oilseeds, which face a 131.8 per cent tariff. Many other farm products face a high tariff wall at the U.S. border: European meats, truffles and Roquefort cheese (100 per cent); processed fruits and vegetables (132 per cent); processed fish (nearly 40 per cent); dates (30 per cent); and asparagus and sweet corn (21.3 per cent), to cite just a few examples out of dozens.

Sugar, too, is sold at double the world price in the U.S. because the industry's politically connected backers have demanded high tariffs to protect it from a flood of cheap imports from Brazil.

'They should just leave us Canadians alone'

"In terms of overall farm subsidies, we just do it somewhat differently," Daniel A. Sumner, an agricultural policy professor at the University of California's Davis campus, said in an interview. "Canadian agriculture is no more subsidized than agriculture in the U.S."

The difference is that while U.S. taxpayers foot the bill for farm protections, in Canada, the cost is carried by consumers at the cash register, Sumner said.

Washington spends more than $20 billion a year on subsidies for farm businesses. About 39 per cent of the 2.1 million U.S. farms receive some form of a subsidy, with most of those handouts going to producers of corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton and rice.

Those subsidies come partly in the form of crop insurance premiums (the U.S. Department of Agriculture pays 62 per cent of their premiums, on average, for a total cost of $6.7 billion a year). The Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) program also provides funds if revenue per acre falls below a certain level, while the Price Loss Coverage (PLC) program subsidizes producers if prices sink below a certain benchmark price set by the U.S. Congress. The United States even subsidizes manure remediation programs.

"I have zero problem with farmers getting subsidies. Agriculture is one of those areas where producers and farmers cannot make money consistently, small and medium-sized farms are often just eking out a living," Muirhead said.

Donald Trump demands Canada dismantle supply management

00:00 02:20

 

The U.S. president says if Canada doesn't dismantle their supply management for dairy, he won't hesitate to dramatically curtail the trading relationship between the two countries 2:20

"My problem is with how stunning hypocritical American policy is. They should just leave us Canadians alone," he said.

Of course, supply management is not without its detractors in Canada.

A hallmark of Quebec MP Maxime Bernier's nearly successful Conservative leadership campaign was his vocal opposition to supply management, a system he said "protects a small cartel of dairy, poultry and egg farmers at the expense of everyone else" and "drives up grocery bills" while hurting Canada's reputation as a free trading nation.

Former Liberal leadership contender and MP Martha Hall Findlay has also said supply management has made Canada the "sick cow of global agricultural trade" because, she said, it hurts a majority of Canadian farmers — including beef, pork, grain, oilseed and pulse producers who would benefit from more global trade in agricultural products.

About the Author

John Paul Tasker

Parliamentary Bureau

John Paul (J.P.) Tasker is a reporter in the CBC's Parliamentary bureau in Ottawa. He can be reached at john.tasker@cbc.ca.