The Chicken Farmers of Ontario marketing board won’t let
reporters attend its district meetings or its annual meeting.
And it posts the bare minimum of useful information on its
website.
And so it was from an article in Country Life in B.C. newspaper
that I learned the dirt on the Ontario board.
I learned that other provincial boards are angry about a
deal the Ontario marketing board has cut with processors.
It essentially has the chicken board cutting prices whenever
processors margins are squeezed.
Not only has the Ontario board agreed to cut prices, but
also to reduce production volumes so the processors are under less pressure to
move chicken.
The four Western provinces are ticked off because they have
been pricing chicken to reflect the prices in Ontario.
This is indeed strange behavior in Ontario because the
chicken board has previously guarded its right to price chicken according to
the cost of production and, if the processors have trouble selling it all, they
have historically reduced production until processor margins recover.
It’s doubly strange when you consider that Ontario refuses
to supply one of its most successful processing plants, CAMI International
Poultry Inc. of Welland.
Not only is the Ontario board refusing to supply CAMI, but
also it’s in league with the Chicken Farmers of Canada, the national agency, to
try to keep CAMI from filling its needs with supplementary import permits for
U.S. chickens.
This looks to me like a straight-out breach of the marketing
boards’ obligation to keep the Canadian market supplied.
Alberta is a province that also feels its market is short of
chicken, so it has served notice it wants out of the national agency unless or
until the agency increases its allocation.
Alberta cites two reasons: its population has increased more
than its allocation and its small-scale processors serving niche markets can’t
get enough chicken.
The same situation exists in Ontario. While Alberta lays
claim to a three per cent increase on the basis of population, Ontario could
claim five per cent on the basis of population.
Quebec would lose four per cent on the population basis.
Ontario has more small-scale processors begging for more
chicken than Alberta, but the big guys have conspired with the chicken board to
freeze them out. Heck, the little guys can’t even get a seat at the table of the Chicken
Industry Advisory Committee.
And then there’s the fact that Ontario and Quebec are in
cahoots to undermine free inter-provincial trade in live chicken, quite
obviously in direct defiance of an agreement negotiated and signed by all the
premiers, promising to promote free trade and dismantle trade barriers.
Alberta dares to speak up at the national agency.
Ontario is a bunch of pipsqueeks.
They are likely convinced that Quebec’s chicken farmers, who
can see how well their dairy-farming cousins have fared by bullying others, are
as likely to yield market share as hens are to grow teeth.
I see that the trade negotiations between Europe and Canada
are snagged on market access – Europe refusing to grant increased access to
Canadian beef and pork unless and until Canada grants increased access for
dairy and poultry products.
Given the track record, I wouldn’t blame the Canadian
negotiators and politicians if they yielded completely open access for chicken in return for increased access for Canadian beef and pork.
And eggs. But that’s another scandalous story. And Chobani yogourt, which is yet another story.
