For months, Canadians have watched President Donald Trump impose new tariffs and trade restrictions on Canadian products.
Those tariffs are wrong.
They make it more expensive to do business, hurt Canadian workers, create uncertainty for investment, and make both countries poorer.
Canada should continue pushing back against American protectionism.
But we should also be honest about our own protectionism.
For decades, Canada has maintained supply management for dairy, poultry, and eggs through our own series of production quotas, import restrictions, tariffs, and price controls.
Those policies limit competition, increase prices for Canadian consumers, and have repeatedly become a sticking point in international trade negotiations.
It's not just the US unhappy with our tariffs - the UK formally called off a trade deal in 2024 due to Canada refusing to remove our supply management tariffs.
Now, the Trump Administration has introduced new tariffs on dairy and alcohol, and they cited Canada's supply-managed dairy system as one of the justifications.
Whether or not that justification is legitimate, it highlights an uncomfortable reality.
How can Canada have any credibility arguing for free and open trade abroad, when we aren't even willing to practice it at home?
And, as for alcohol, we don't even have free trade in alcohol within Canada, never mind with other countries!
Free trade can't simply be a principle we tell other countries to follow.
It should be one on which Canada leads by example.
Removing supply management would lower barriers to trade, strengthen Canada's position in future trade negotiations, expand export opportunities for industries that compete internationally, and give Canadian consumers more choice.
And it would be good for Canada's dairy industry too!
Government welfare programs - which is what supply management ultimately is - might help a person or an industry in the short term, but ultimately they build dependency.
When New Zealand abolished its version of supply management, their dairy farmers quickly adapted, and now - thanks to technology and innovation - the market is massively larger than it ever was under protectionism.
Canada's economy has always depended on selling our products to the world.
The answer to American tariffs isn't more protectionism.
It's less.
Project Confederation believes Canada should embrace genuine free trade, both between provinces and with our international trading partners.
If we expect other countries to remove barriers against Canadian products, we should be prepared to remove unnecessary barriers of our own.
If you agree, please sign our petition calling on the Government of Canada to Abolish Supply Management:
Let's tell the government to negotiate future trade agreements based on the principles of free and open trade rather than protectionism!
