Questioning quotas |
Every once in a while, someone inside a tightly protected system decides to say the quiet part out loud.
That is what Joel Fox, a dairy farmer from the Trenton area, did recently in the Ontario Farmer newspaper. In a candid open letter, Fox questioned why established dairy farmers like himself continue to receive increasingly large government payouts — even though the sector is not shrinking, but expanding.
His piece, titled “We continue to privatize gains, socialize losses,” did not come from an economist or a critic of supply management. It came from someone who benefits from it. And yet his message was unmistakable: The numbers no longer add up.
Fox’s letter marks something we have not seen in years, a rare moment of internal dissent from a system that usually speaks with one voice. It is the first meaningful crack since the viral milk-dumping video by Ontario dairy farmer Jerry Huigen, who filmed himself being forced to dump thousands of litres of perfectly good milk because of quota rules. Huigen’s video exposed contradictions inside supply management, but the system quickly closed ranks. Until now. Fox has reopened a conversation that has been dormant for far too long.
$14,000 cheque
In his letter, Fox admitted he would cash his latest $14,000 Dairy........