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Comment by dleslie | Hacker News Reader

Canada does not subsidize dairy farmers; it regulates and manages their production. It's a subtle but important distinction.

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It is a subsidy in practice: you're restricting competition to increase the profits of the farmers.

Call it whatever you want, but the government it guaranteeing the farmer's profits, and society is paying for it.

I'll call it what it is: a managed market. It's not a subsidy.

Words have meaning.

Canadian consumers as a group pay the same amount for milk as a group, regardless of how much or little milk they demand, by means of government regulation. Canadian dairy farmers as a group receive the same amount regardless of how much or little milk they produce and how much or little milk consumers demand.

That the subsidy to the farmers is coming as $.30 per liter of milk as opposed to a single check at the end of the month doesn’t make it any less of a subsidy.

Canadian consumers as a group buy a variant amount of dairy products without any Government requirement of a minimum purchase amount.

Canadian dairy farmers coordinate with one another with the assistance of the Canadian Government to avoid over-producing and under-producing, and to sell as a single bargaining unit to purchasers. At no point does the Canadian Government subsidize dairy farmers to produce products, nor does the Canadian Government rebate Canadian consumers for purchasing dairy products.

Moreover, the Canada Food Guide no longer includes dairy as an essential food group. Most Canadians live close to the border and could cross-border shop.

There is no subsidy.

> Canadian dairy farmers coordinate with one another with the assistance of the Canadian Government to avoid over-producing and under-producing

Translating: the Canadian government protects collusion between the Canadian farmers to reduce competition and extract undue economic profits from society.

Yep, it is a subsidy.

Along with the proximity to the American border and the duty-free purchasing allowed, CETA opened up broader quotas on importing dairy products from Europe without tariffs, _and buyers are not availing themselves of the full extent of it_. There is no extraction of undue economic profits because consumers can, and yet do not, access other markets without tariff.

There is no monetary or financial assistance provided, none whatsoever.

> opened up broader quotas

I love how you try to justify that this isn't a subsidy by using the word "quotas"!

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