Opening Canada’s barn doors for the sake of trade..

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Permalink Reply by Joann on June 21, 2012 at 10:11pm

Apparently Martha Hall Findlay wrote a research paper in regards to Canada's agricultural supply management system which was written for Jack Mintz’s School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary.   ( i would love to read her paper ... where can I find a copy?)

 

She made some very pointed arguments and even suggested that if she ran for politics again she would try to make the dismantling of supply management a Liberal policy.(or was that John Ivison slant on things?)

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/06/21/john-ivison-trans-pa...

 

But I have a few questions for Ms. Hall Findlay.

 

Quota is merely a licence with a quantitative value. 

 

Licences to trade are entrenched in our Constitution to protect food supply rights of the domestic population.   Farmers have an obligation to supply domestic needs and wants to domestic peoples before export.  The licences grant a right to trade.

 

 

It’s a very old law in Canada... a law that one of the leading Liberal agricultural researcher still cannot find....... (or so he has told me anyway… but then he was unaware that agricultural boards, associations and societies were legal corporate entities that existed in Ontario/Quebec before confederation)...

 

 

While most Canadians have the “privilege” to enjoy our domestic food supply, there are many First Nations Peoples, and others, that possess the “right” to our food supply through signed Treaties with the Crown.   Our domestic food supply laws are part of the Covenant Chain and therefore are a contractual obligation of the Crown to the domestic population.

 

 

It is the very foundation of our Sovereign domestic food supply law.

 

 

 

Does Ms. Hall Findlay think that dismantling domestic Public Trusts that oversee and control “rights” to regulated agricultural commodities is in the best interest of the Public?  If the marketing boards are dissolved who will ensure the domestic wants and needs are fulfilled?.... or does she care for those people that have the “right” to domestic food and cannot acquire their wants/needs?

 

 

If Ms. Hall Findlay is determined to dissolve Sovereign domestic food rights…. Will Ms. Hall Findlay also release the farmers from their obligation to the public?  Is it fair to dissolve farmers’ rights but continue to indenture farmers to Crown obligations?

 

When the marketing boards are dissolved, who will dispense licences to trade as stipulated in our Constitution?…… issuing licences without fee or reward… or….will licences be required at all?

 

Will Ms. Hall Findlay arbitrate a deferential between licences with trading “privileges” and the ones with trading “rights”?  How will that impact domestic processing when some people have a “right” to our domestic production and others merely have the “privilege” to domestic production? 

 

 

Which class of farmers receive a licence to supply “privileged” processors and which class of farmers receive licences to supply processors that have “rights” to domestic production?

 

How would Ms. Hall Findlay handle the devaluation of agriculture capital and its effect on an already fragile Ontario economy?

 

As agricultural licences are Constitutionally mandated to be granted to farmers without “fee or reward”, does Ms. Hall Findlay advocate that the Province of Ontario return all financial rewards it received the last 60 years as a result of quota capitalization? 

 

Did the Province of Ontario have the lawful right to extract a benefit, receive a reward when it placed an assessment of marketing “rights”?  Will Ms. Hall Findlay demand those monies be returned to the farmers?

 

Will Ms. Hall Findlay suggest compensation for the farmers’ loss of their Sovereign right to “TAX” or does she believe that 'right' can be expropriated without compensation?    Will farmers also be compensation for the loss in the value of their capital?

 

 

Did the Sovereign release its’ rights to control marketing on ALL indigenous commodities….. and if not…. can our government lawfully proceed with an unlicensed future for agricultural commodities… in the Constitutionally specified areas in Ontario and Quebec?

 

Did Mr. McGuinty sign away Ontario’s marketing rights in June 2008?  How much did he receive?

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Permalink Reply by Joann on June 22, 2012 at 12:09pm

My, my, my.

Ms. Martha Hall Findlay appears to have omitted some crucial facts in her paper to make the discussion relevant.

She gives a version of the history of supply management but totally absent from her paper are the Constitutionally protected Royal Proclamations that provide the very foundation of supply managed rights which were put in place to protect the Crown's interests.

She omits the facts that licences are key to legislative agricultural corporations.  She totally omits to explain that the marketing boards are indeed Public Trusts and does not explain why and how they are legal Public Trusts.

She failed to mention that many Ontario/Quebec farmers have rights, duties and obligations to the Crown.  She suggests that farmers' rights should be eroded a/o annihilated but does not suggest the same should apply to farmers' Sovereign obligations to the public.  Where is the balance?

She appears to address economic dimensions of the Agricultural Public Trust but evades elements of social justice in regards to the regulated commodities.

She does not mention that marketing rights were awarded permanently in 1928... the same year the LCBO was given their powers.  She does not mention that the LCBO and agricultural marketing rights came about for the same reasons.

She forgets to mention that our government did not give us our rights, they just enabled and respected agricultural rights that existed long before confederation.  She forgets to mention that Ontario and Quebec have special agricultural marketing rights entrenched in the constitution.

The source determines the nature of rights and Ms. Hall Findlay absolutely misses the mark in that category.

Her paper is nothing short of a shameful display of political posturing and lacking in intelligible facts in regards to agricultural licences and their relationship to supply managed legislative corporations.

Her paper is incomplete and should receive a failing grade... in my opinion

http://www.policyschool.ucalgary.ca/?q=content/supply-management-pr...

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