Milking the Poor

 

Skibbereen, 1847

Back in 1815, the government of Great Britain decided to impose a stiff tariff on any grain being imported from abroad, and even to refuse entry if the grain was sold too cheaply to Britons. This was to keep grain prices high for British landowners.

This was a massive transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich—the landowning class, the aristocracy.

In Ireland, the poor were forced to survive on their own meagre crops of potatoes. They could not afford bread.

And in 1845, the potato crop failed. This did not move the UK government to end the Corn Laws. One third of the Irish starved to death, and one third emigrated in “coffin ships,” largely to Canada, many dying on the way, many dying on the docks. Survivors had to start a new life with nothing. They largely built the Canada we have today.

And today, the Canadian government is doing pretty much the same thing all over again: their “price supports” for eggs, milk, dairy products, and poultry, actually a government-enforced cartel in restraint of trade. These are not luxury items, but the cheapest protein available. The government forces prices up by restricting supply and preventing importation.

It is, again, a massive transfer of wealth from the poorest Canadians to the rich—to large corporate farming operations with the capital to buy “quota.”

It is especially indefensible in a time like now, with the poor seeing their cost of living spiral upward, many living in tents on the street. As with Ireland in 1847, their troubles could be vastly improved immediately by a stroke of the pen. And a callous government is refusing to do it.

The argument for price supports is that they are necessary to allow Canadian farmers to compete, since both America and the EU directly subsidize their agricultural sector.

Doing the same would be better. At least that would be subsidizing both rich and poor instead of asking the poor to subsidize the rich.

But if the American taxpayer or the French taxpayer really want to subsidize food costs for Canadians, why exactly should we want to prevent it?

In every other sector, we believe in the principle of comparative advantage: if someone else can make shoes at a lower cost than we can, we buy their shoes, and sell them something we can make more efficiently, like car parts. For the benefit of all, Canadian farms should concentrate on crops they can sell abroad, rather than demanding a protected market at home. Canadian cheese used to dominate the British market; price supports have cost us that opportunity. And where would we be if, in retaliation, other countries raised tariff barriers to our canola or durum wheat or lumber?

At worst, if, improbably, no crops are profitable in Canada, that farmland is not going anywhere. It is there when we need it.

Are we worried about losing the expertise for poultry or dairy farming in case of future need, in, say, wartime? We could preserve that in government experimental farms and agricultural stations. And, at worst, it is hard to imagine a scenario in which we could not be supplied from the USA.

It’s time to end the exploitation of the poor.