What We Can Learn About Open Markets From Wine and Wheat
– April 24, 2013
Canadian history is filled with tales of protected industries destined for oblivion because of free trade, foreign threats or lost subsidies. But the worst-case scenario rarely plays out as predicted. Consider two prominent examples from the past quarter-century: the advent of free trade for Ontario’s wine industry and the end of the subsidized freight rates for Western grain farmers. In both cases, disaster was predicted. Yet both sectors adapted and emerged stronger.
Let Fishermen Off the Hook
– October 3, 2012
A new Frontier Centre study showing that payments to fishermen under the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation’s (FFMC) jurisdiction are declining should be a wake-up call to the provinces and territory that are still under it.
Manitoba Fishers Protest Massive Seizure of Mullet
– August 18, 2012
A group of about 35 western Manitoba fishers demonstrated in front of the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corp.'s Transcona plant Monday, protesting the federal agency's seizure last week of mullet destined for Illinois.
Beyond Supply Management
– March 30, 2012
Canada’s dairy industry is not currently well-positioned to succeed in increasingly liberalized international markets and policy reforms are currently needed to insure competitiveness in the future.
Why Protecting Dairy, Poultry Farmers is no Sacred Cow for Harper
– March 12, 2012
Is the Harper government willing to dismantle the supply management system that protects poultry and dairy farmers from competition? You should bet that it is.
Canada Risks Being Left Empty-Handed in Asia
– March 2, 2012
Far from the truculent finger-pointing that once characterized his government’s attitude to China – an attitude it still displays elsewhere – Mr. Harper buried whatever criticisms he made of China’s terrible human-rights record in closed-door meetings. In public, it was all sweetness and light, trade deals and photo ops with pandas.
New Voluntary Wheat Board May Struggle
– December 7, 2011
The federal government is about to abolish compulsory membership in the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB). However, there are good reasons to doubt that a voluntary board will succeed. Farmers who chose not to take part in the board will likely be better off, like their counterparts in the rest of the world that do not operate under a wheat marketing board.
Milking Our Gullibility
– November 10, 2011
Why we pay more for dairy products couldn’t be simpler: Our dairy cartel artificially restricts supply. Now, according to economic theory, industries with literally thousands of competitors, as there are in dairy, aren’t able to form cartels. It’s too easy for members to cheat by cutting prices on the sly. Even the world’s most famous cartel, OPEC, with only a dozen members, often has trouble keeping oil prices high.
Wheat Board Stacks the Deck in Effort to Retain its Monopoly
– August 25, 2011
The Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) is using old tricks to justify its monopoly over prairie wheat and barley sales. The board is conducting a mail-in plebiscite among western farmers that is rigged to give it the result it wants – namely the appearance of widespread support for its “single-desk” marketing of all wheat and barley harvested for human consumption.
Media Release - Prosperity Ahead Without Canadian Wheat Board Monopoly
– July 28, 2011
This study looks ahead and assesses possible consequence scenarios to the eventuality that the Canadian Wheat Board is removed in 2012 as many expect.
The Tories’ Massive Contradiction on Supply Management
– June 23, 2011
True to his name, the new International Trade Minister, Ed Fast, was quick out of the starting blocks following his elevation from the backbenches to the front line of the Harper cabinet.
Dairy Trade Winners, Losers, and Winners
– April 14, 2010
New Zealand Prime Minister John Key’s visit to Ottawa serves to contrast Canada’s agricultural policy with the policy of free trade.
The Wheat Board’s Tall Tales
– August 21, 2009
The board’s claim that by gathering together all prairie grain and selling it in bulk it will achieve a higher price is a myth, because even though it controls the output of around 60,000 farmers, it nonetheless still controls too little grain to push the price up by withholding wheat and barley from the market, then rushing it to the selling floor.
Where's The Outrage Over High Milk Prices?
– July 28, 2009
To realize how truly peculiar our milk thinking is, consider another crucial liquid in Canadians' lives, this one black. When world oil prices fall and their decline is not instantaneously reflected at your local gas pump, the media, the man in the street and Liberal MP Dan McTeague all become apoplectic.
Hearts And Minds Mixed Over Heartlandia
– May 22, 2009
The bottom line is the attempt to make cross-border activity easier, getting people working as a team more often and to capitalize on what may be a long growth cycle for the West.
All Roads Lead To The Middle
– May 21, 2009
As the region's agricultural, food processing, aerospace, transportation and manufacturing sectors mature, there is increasing interest in developing new markets within the region.
More Jobs and Better Taxi Service
– February 13, 2009
Why Canada should follow New Zealand and Ireland and deregulate taxis.
Media Release - More Jobs and Better Taxi Service
– February 12, 2009
Market failure, regulatory failure, and how to make taxi markets function for more jobs and better service.
Something Rotten in the State of Winnipeg Taxi Market
– February 10, 2009
After the disappointment of the Winnipeg Taxi Study, Senior Policy Analyst David Seymour takes a more imaginative look at the results of taxi deregulation in other countries.
Canada’s Wheat Cult
– November 24, 2008
The CWB has become as much an economic cult as a Crown marketing agency. So it is never going to admit it is a drag on farmers or the West. But at some point taxpayers have to wake up to the fact that they are subsidizing Western farmers to the tune of $1-billion or more a year and they wouldn't have to if the federal government would simply make marketing grain through the board optional, rather than compulsory. |
