Often, before we move on or even express ourselves, we should think back on what has happened that changed our path forward. Lately, we have been threatened by the president of the country just south of us.
About 60 years ago, the auto pact was signed between the U.S. and Canada which assured that a high percentage of parts used in cars sold in both countries would be manufactured in North America. This led to a boom in auto production in both countries, an increase in workers wages, and sales in both countries. Both auto parts and automobiles moved freely between both countries tariff-free. It remained in effect until the free-trade agreement between the U.S. and Canada 14 years later. It was supposed to further increase tariff-free trade between the two countries but to get it, Canada had to give up some of its milk market (quota).
In 2020, the U.S., Mexico, and Canada signed the USMCA trade agreement which replaced NAFTA which was between the U.S. and Canada only. The USMCA will cause Canada to relinquish an additional 13 per cent of its dairy market while assuring Canada of a secure auto industry. You can see yourself how that is going!
I once witnessed an expensive new grain terminal built at the most easterly end of Canada’s rail line where trans-Atlantic ships could load year-round, even in winter. There was an iron mine just a few miles north of that to supply those empty grain cars and be filled with iron pellets for the return trip to the lakehead and hence make the trains more efficient. Before the cement was dry in that new grain terminal, that iron mine closed down. However, the grain trader that used that grain terminal got their Atlantic grain terminal. When the prime minister who was in power when the terminal was built, was defeated a few years later, that grain trader graciously hired that prime minister as a lawyer.
If you have talked to your doctor or nutritionist about different amino-acids, you will know that some amino-acids are very efficient to ensuring good health, growth, and recovery from sickness. One such amino acid (lysine) is very important to reduce anxiety and improve efficiency of weight gain in hogs. There was only one grain trader and a Japanese company that made Lysine for hog feed. Those two were sued for price-fixing and received the largest fine ever at the time by the United States. Guess who their lawyer was?
The dismantling of the Canadian wheat pool was completed by a prime minister who was a friend of another grain trader who didn’t like the wheat pool because it was working for farmers more than the grain trader to find the best price of grains all over the world. That reduced the profits of grain traders and resulted in federal grain subsidies to compensate grain farmers for lost income. A prime minister also tried to get his agriculture minister to work towards the elimination of the supply management system, but that agriculture minister resigned because he knew it was the wrong thing to do! It is never the well-off traders who pay for those mis-justices, but the primary producers and the consumers who end up paying.
So why the original “je me souviens” on the Quebec licence plates? Some Quebec nationalists believe that the French were not beaten by the English on the Plains of Abraham. There was a war going on in Europe at the same time as the fight on the Plains of Abraham. Both France and England were short of soldiers because of the casualties in Europe. To fill the gap, both England and France hired Scottish mercenaries to fight for money with their armies in New France.
After the battle on the Plains of Abraham had gone on for a time and both generals (Wolfe and Montcalm) were killed, the soldiers looked down the St. Lawrence river and there were several British ships with hundreds of soldiers aboard sailing towards Quebec City. The soldiers from both sides knew what the outcome would be when those new English soldiers arrived. Some of those Scottish mercenaries had been killing their neighbours from towns in Scotland. Since the French general had been killed first, the remaining soldiers decided that the English either did win or would win! So, did the English really win, or did France just abandon New France? Later on, France and England worked out a deal for North America. France gave up New France, but kept Saint Pierre and Miquelon and some islands and territory in the warm Caribbean.
During WWII, when Germany invaded France, France’s leaders surrendered and signed an armistice with Germany. By giving Germany control of France, it also gave Germany the right to be close to Saint Pierre and Miquelon and German soldiers were observed in Nova Scotia and German submarines were up the St. Lawrence as far as Montreal sinking several ships in the St. Lawrence and North Atlantic.
While Canada worked to eliminate the production of surpluses with the implementation of the supply management system of marketing dairy, chicken, and eggs, the U.S. continued to overproduce and tried to control the world with cheap food produced at a great loss to producers and a tax on the taxpayers to prop up farmers. Now the U.S. is trying to impose huge tariffs on other countries to compensate for years of mismanagement of both production and marketing. Oui, je me souviens. (Yes, I remember).
Chris Judd is a farmer in Clarendon on land that has been in his family for generations.
