This is a funny parallel to the U.S. oil reserve news recently. The Canadian maple syrup market is a fascinating one. I've read before that maple syrup farmers in Québec legally must sell their maple syrup through a central organization, so maple syrup smuggling by farmers into other provinces isn't unheard of. It's almost like a maple syrup mafia.
Canada has lots of de-facto cartels, liquor, milk (and all derivatives, such as cheese), eggs, maple syrup, anything that makes money has a bunch of fat cats that you have to sell it to who will then create artificial scarcity and drive up the prices.
There is no free market for many things in Canada. This is sad because the population is not exactly the wealthiest and these people are being fleeced.
People here are giving you some pretty ignorant ideas. The reasons things like this exist for certain industries in Canada is to maintain healthy markets while protecting the smallest of players in those markets. Things like Maple Syrup and Milk are tightly controlled because it ensures that in both good times and bad that the market does not get too volatile and squeeze the smallest producers out of it.
Usually the strongest opponents of these controls and regulations are the giant players or external interests that either want to be able to dump product to undercut and corner the market or eliminate the ability for any industry to collectively bargain for better deals when it comes to things like shipping infrastructure (take railways as an example).
And then there is Canada's proximity and cultural similarity to the United States, which while being it's greatest strength is probably its greatest weakness. The USA heavily subsidizes its primary industries that it is in Canada's national security interests to keep up high walls, regulations, and "cartels" to keep things like Canada food security in Canadian hands.
> Usually the strongest opponents of these controls and regulations are the giant players
That’s only partly true. The other side of it is that many of these regulations also ensure that the giant players remain firmly entrenched. As an example, it is illegal for me to go directly to a dairy farmer and buy a gallon of milk directly; it has to work its way through the entire supply chain first, even though the producer is running his operation in compliance with all food safety regulations (otherwise his milk wouldn’t be allowed into the supply chain anyway)
Edit: or, before the Wheat Board was torn down, a farmer couldn’t directly sell his wheat to the grain mill down the road (or across the border), it had to go through the CWB. This kept a lot of middlemen very happy.
I don't disagree with what you are saying and you are not wrong, but it is also key to remember that when the Wheat Board was dismantled, CP and CN rail immediately started maximizing their profitability to the extreme by cutting down on available rail cars, leaving a lot of small producers out in the cold, especially if they were in a geographically disadvantaged position. It becomes extra nasty when you realize it is American interests that own large portions of CP and CN, in particular Bill Gates alone owns more than 10% of CN.
Some of those are true. But our governments are all shitshows (and all corrupt), there's oligopolies and cartels that run shit, one province is basically controlled by a single family, and the largest industry is a real estate ponzi scheme. Apart from that we're basically a petro-state pretending to be woke.
Some of the wealthiest US states also are rumored to be essentially run by organized crime. I can't say I'm aware they are especially bad places to live.
I read something about how a certain famous politician who supposedly cleaned out the "X" mob was actually a tool of the "Y" mob taking over.
Canada has a high HDI, high GDP per capita and a low degree of inequality (much lower than the US).
In terms of HDI, Alberta is on par with Iceland and Germany, BC and Ontario on par with Finland and Singapore. [1] Canada scores overall 0.929, above the US (0.924).
In terms of GDP per capita (PPP), Canada ranks #23 in the world, around Finland, France, the UK, Austria and Iceland (albeit below the US) [2]
In terms of inequality, Canada has the 4th lowest GINI coefficient among the OECD (after Australia, Austria and Belgium) - well ahead of the US which is the highest inequality in the OECD. [3]
Banks are well managed and well run. Canada for instance didn't have a "2008." The government actually works pretty well. Housing is nuts right now, but that is a pretty easy if unpalatable fix (just build more houses, asap).
Could things be better? Yeah. Totally. Are they bad? No. Certainly not as bad as the peer comments here are making it out to be. COVID has gotten to everyone but I think it's important we keep our perspectives grounded in fact.
Yeah that's straight-up false. I've spent a lot of time in the eastern provinces and in the United States over the last few years. I think rather than opinion, this would be a good opportunity to dig up some data.
I've actually lived there, and it's so bad I couldn't believe it.
People quite literally stoking up their houses in bad winters because they don't have money for wood for their woodstove. I've never seen anything like that anywhere in the world and I've spent some time in pretty poor places.
Of course you don't have to believe me, I couldn't care less. But it's depressing how down and out people are there. It's a combination of a weak economy and a rather fragile social security safety net. In theory it's all there, in practice it is quite easy to fall through the cracks, especially when you are older, unable to work or of native descent.
> There is no free market for many things in Canada. This is sad because the population is not exactly the wealthiest and these people are being fleeced.
There are people on both sides of every transaction. Canada skews protectionist, especially around dairy, but that doesn't mean people are being fleeced. Farmers who take higher wages as a result live better lives, and the marginal delta in prices isn't really felt at the checkouts. Certainly in some cases, but definitely not in all.
Maybe not so much on milk because the retailer eats a low margin on it with higher margins on other products, but you really feel it on dairy-heavy products like butter or cheese.
There’s a reason why the import duty on cheese averages 250%. They’ve got a cartel to protect from the consumer choice evils of the free market.
And then there’s the underdevelopment of the dairy industry as a whole. Canada exports grain to other countries to feed their cows instead of having more cows here and exporting value-added dairy.
> There’s a reason why the import duty on cheese averages 250%. They’ve got a cartel to protect from the consumer choice evils of the free market.
That's one way to choose to look at it. Protectionism has two sides. If you allow foreign imports to undercut the price of domestic goods that will filter down to the folks producing it, and hurt them too. Competition is good for the consumer but not the producer. I think we often forget that the consumer and producer and usually the same group of people.
Looks like 52% of all dairy farms in Canada are sole proprietorships. Partnerships were 23%. Another 22% were family corporations. [1]
Those folks collect more money as a result of keeping the market closed and live better as a result.
I'm generally pretty pro free-trade, except in agriculture.
If you are trying to build a dairy market that values and seeks to grow small producers then reducing competition helps achieve that as they are not necessarily competitive. You would force consolidation among independent producers by opening up the border for these ag products. I don't think industrial scale farming as a necessity is good for the animals, the farmers, the environment or the country, and I'm willing to pay more for that.
The US is a ruthless competitor and has some pretty shady agricultural practices - especially dumping corn. [2] Frankly any edge Canada is able to retain against its much larger, strong-armed neighbor to the south is likely to benefit Canadians.
> Agricultural “dumping” – the practice of exporting commodities at prices below the cost of production -- can be devastating for farmers in importing countries, especially in low-income countries with little power to use trade rules to defend their markets. It is unfair competition for producers in other exporting countries. And by encouraging overproduction in the U.S., it traps U.S. producers, too, in a never-ending need for higher yields, or bigger farms, or both. [2]
> Third, dumping creates an economic environment that undermines the realization of environmental objectives. [2]
That's not what I want. I can see your argument, too, but I do respectfully disagree.
Sure, but unlike say NZ, they're literally adjacent meaning that the cost of transport plays a much smaller role and the barriers to entry are smaller - thus increasing the risk.
> Anyways, we have tools against dumping if it does happen.
Indeed! Protectionism and protectionist policies. Dumping would be solely good for Canadian consumers and solely bad for Canadian producers no? If the US government wants to subsidize corn to below the cost of production and throw it over the border, why stop them? It seems like my argument just taken to an extreme.
> Competition is fantastic for the producer: it stops them from getting lazy.
I think we broadly agree except I don't believe in industrializing agriculture unless strictly necessary. Industrial agriculture is bad for everyone, and the environment, IMO.
> Canada could have been a dairy export juggernaut like New Zealand, but instead Canada kept itself underdeveloped in dairy.
I personally do not desire this outcome, but I respect your position.
From what I can tell, eliminating the Wheat Board has at least been a positive.
On the liquor front, that cartel is the provincial governments themselves! There’s been a bit of relaxation on those regulations, but until recently alcohol was only allowed to be moved between provinces with Crown approval, typically via provincial liquor boards.
It’s basically a cartel. But Canada does that with a lot of its agricultural products. Dairy is notorious for restricting supply to keep prices high. It’s why Canadians are shocked to see the price of cheese in the US. A block of Parmesan that costs $20USD might be $70CAD.
Thing is, this cartel has no legal standing. There’s nothing stopping a supermarket from selling Ontario or Vermont maple syrup.
Quebec is ~70% of world production though, but it’s up to them and them only to control the price. Everyone else benefits without restricting supply. #2 exporter is Myanmar (? this must be a mistake).
It’s kinda like OPEC losing its power as other countries up their production. (And every OPEC member cheating).
Without the cartel it would be a bunch of random producers selling in a competitive market. Now it’s a single seller of Quebec Maple Syrup and you have to buy through them. It looks like some exceptions (small producers).
That's not really the same thing. For maple syrup and raisins they're both government mandated supply controls, whereas government cheese is simply government buying up supply from farmers and providing a price floor.
There’s a great political satire novel by Peter Lefcourt called “The Woody” in which among many problems, a Vermont senator is being blackmailed by the Vermont mob which is the Vermont maple syrup distributors.
