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John Powell's avatar

Thank you Brian Lilley. I can spell your name. Note that CBC News this morning made some random comment on the USA/EU deal that “nothing is really signed legislatively “

My mum was fond of saying “ there are none so blind as those who cannot see”. That’s an old English proverb. She was born in England. As was I. Proud to be Canadians.

I use CBC radio as a wake up call. Works every time. I get so angry I jump up and turn it off.

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Wester Ranta's avatar

I do the same!

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Emily's avatar

The Elbows Up crowd are the same people who won’t travel to the U.S because Trump is a “dictator”, but then go to Cuba for a week.

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Darryl Burrows's avatar

Hilariously true.

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Jan's avatar

I see them still using Substack to let us know. Have they given up Visa, Mastercard, Netflix and Google? I doubt it.

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Emily's avatar

Nope, and they still shop on Amazon. 👍

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Peter Floyd's avatar

This is the disparity of dairy quotas in Canada.

Canada's dairy quotas are heavily concentrated in Quebec. Quebec accounts for about 37% of the country's total domestic milk production quota, despite having only around 4,200 dairy operations out of approximately 9,400 in the nation.

Carney will not upset that voter base. He requires them to remain in power.

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Darryl Burrows's avatar

Absolutely correct. Along the lines as to what Lilley is saying - the dairy cartel, because that’s what it is - contributes about 1% to the Canadian GDP. On its own, it’s a billion dollars and that seems like a lot of money. However it is dwarfed by the sectors of the economy who are going to feel the pain of these tariffs - they contribute far more to our GDP. So what this is really all about is the Liberals pandering to Mom and Pop dairy farmers in Quebec - the average herd size is a paltry 50 cows per farm - so the Liberals can remain in power, and to hell with the big picture - which is the rest of Canadian industry - wheat and cattle farming, canola and potash mining, as well as all of the other mining we do, forestry, oil and gas, automotive manufacturing and all the other smaller feeder operations like tool and dye shops that feed into it. Pretty sad.

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GJS's avatar

The Canadian dairy cartel and its captive shills in the government and public service have masterfully convinced Canadians that milk produced under a quota system administered by a government sanctioned cartel is the lone bulwark standing between Canada and the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

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Mike Canary's avatar

Mark Carney and the Liberals do not want a trade deal with the U.S. This way they get to blame Canada’s tanking economy on the bad orange man, rather than change their destructive policies. Canada’s economy has been in recession for the past year or more, after 10 years of Liberal government, but CBC, CTV and the rest of the government media parrots continue to blame the U.S. president that’s been in office for 6 months. Elbows up 🙄

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Darryl Burrows's avatar

You nailed it - 100%. Problem is - how will Canada survive? They spend money like drunken sailors on shore leave - record deficits on top of record deficits- done with the guidance and approval of their lead economic adviser Mark Carney. Now the US has signed a $ 750 billion dollar energy package with the EU. So much for Canada becoming an “Energy Superpower” - thanks to the economic genius and his influence on the Trudeau government- we kept all of that stuff in the ground. We don’t even have ways of getting this energy to either coast to ship nor do we have ports built to ship it from. The energy superpower dream will take 10-15 years to construct- maybe - all depends on how quickly the lawsuit’s get settled that the indigenous and the environmentalists will be launching to stop any of it. Manufacturing will be gone by then and so will Canada.

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MarshaLouise's avatar

And then, as you say, Canada being “gone”, as in bankrupt, it will be ripe for a Trump bailout, and we become the 51st state. It can’t happen soon enough.

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Darryl Burrows's avatar

I hear you Marsha.

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GJS's avatar

If supply management is the hill Canada chooses to die on and ultimately scuppers the entire trade deal, it will be a just another feather in the cap for the Canadian dairy mafia and their army of lobbyists, PR flacks, and brainwashers.

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Jerry Grant's avatar

Aluminum spends less than $1M on lobbying, Dairy $100M. Aluminum may be more important to Canadians, but dairy is more important to politicians.

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Wester Ranta's avatar

This will not end well. Too many Canadians are full of themselves - they are legends in their own minds.

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Darryl Burrows's avatar

You nailed this one Mr. Lilley. I am a “Boomer” who is extremely disappointed in my cohort. I too comment on issues around our trade relationship with the US to my local newspaper - the Windsor Star, and I get the same pathetic reasoning from other readers here that you get. These people cannot stand the truth that’s all or they live in a permanent state of ignorance. I have dealt with these “ phoney Canadians “ all my life. The ones who define their sense of what it is to be a Canadian, solely by being “ Anti-American”. Back in the day they would recite the same tired examples - free healthcare, our beer was stronger and our cigarettes were better. Well, now the healthcare system has fallen to 3’rd world conditions, and no one cares about Canadian beer - the largest selling brands in Canada are American albeit manufactured in Canada. These boneheads cannot tell you anything about our geography, or our history. They have no clue what a parliamentary system of government even is, let alone how it works. All that you can do is laugh at their complete ignorance.

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William Mitton's avatar

I tried laughing at their ignorance Darryl, ..now I just weep for the Canada that was.

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Darryl Burrows's avatar

I completely understand William. You have two options, to laugh or cry. I do not recognize this country any longer.

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MarshaLouise's avatar

I certainly don’t laugh, but I will not cry either. The choices that the ignoramuses, called Liberal voters, make will be their cross one day soon - when the welfare runs out, and I will say, “I told you so!”

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Jesse's avatar

The US is our customer. I am not aware of any self-respecting organization that blames the customer for taking their business elsewhere. It is what it is, and those crying foul need to grow up. And we all need to understand that those screaming the loudest are also those who the left-leaning mainstream media have unfairly influenced. If Canada's negotiating team refuses to acquiesce to the US legitimate and reasonable requests regarding dairy, it could lead to a public backlash in the rest of the country.

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Cesar's avatar

Carney and the liberals are good in one thing..failures. My take is that there will be no deal as Carney is incapable of making deals.

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Sandra D Barber's avatar

When will Canadians ever wake up to the fact that POLITICIANS have no clue about business in any form. That includes dairy farming and management, the auto industry, energy production and lastly the law in Canada. I am Canadian born, in my 9th decade, have seen more than most others, and am thoroughly disgusted with the misguided arrogance this country has against our neighbors in the USA. Both USA and Canada are and have always been melting pots for peoples of all nations, no matter what race, religion, color, sexual preferences, etc. We are NEIGHBORS, let us all get along. And WORK together.

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Darryl Burrows's avatar

Sandra - I am in my 70’s - great to see that not all of us “boomers” are idiots who keep voting the same group of fiscally incompetent, WOKE, far left socialists whose intention is to govern by mandates. These Liberals feel they know better than the people, than the businessmen and entrepreneurs, the hard working labourers of this country who have moved away from the Liberals and have moved towards a Conservative Party that has moved into the Center. The Liberals are turning Canada into a fiscal wasteland and you are 100% correct, they deflect the blame onto someone else. The media they bought and paid for tows the line and spreads the propaganda. The sheep who follow it do not do one iota of independent research - instead because it’s on the CBC or CTV or the Toronto Star it must be gospel. I am very worried about this county and it’s long term survival.

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Merlin M's avatar

With all federal parties backing the dairy cartel it’s difficult to see a viable off ramp in these negotiations. Watching Andrew Scheer chugging milk after winning the Conservative leadership nearly had me hurling mine. If supply management somehow remains intact then another sector will have to be sacrificed. This again will burden an entire country with higher costs of living to save a few thousand very well to do operations concentrated in (surprise surprise) Quebec. When China was the combatant previously the target was predominantly western Canada agriculture where there were few Liberal votes to lose anyway. Again surprise surprise.

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MarshaLouise's avatar

Dear God, don’t you wish that at least 50% of Canadians had an ability to reason?

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Roger Langille's avatar

Thank you Brian ,

You are absolutely correct.

If our negotiation team was negotiating for free trade with no duties or restrictions of anykind.

The deal would be done already and 41 million of us would have free trade.

Instead we have 25% duties on our grocery bill.

Thanks to those conserned liberals running Ottawa for us the tax payers!

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Joanne Donohue's avatar

Does Carney actually want a trade deal with the US? Everything he’s done so far has alienated us from the US — our relationship is over — they want to own us — we are more European. It got him elected and he succeeded in making a lot of Canadians hate our neighbours to the south. It’s a great strategy if isolation and total control is his plan as described in his book, Values.

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Marty's avatar

I’m Canadian (ALBERTAN FIRST) and I hope Trump hands Kremlin Karney his ass. Fuck Karney.

NOTHING BUT A GLOBALIST COCK SUCKER.

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Darcy Hickson's avatar

The dairy quota system is stale dated and is in desperate need of reform. Everyone knows that, and dairy producers looking at the writing on the wall know it too.

The problem that nobody wants to confront is what happens after the quota system is abandoned? The grocery conglomerates will have access to lower priced fluid milk and cheese, but how much of that will be passed on to the consumers? Call me cynical but supply chain participants and retailers can always find ways to absorb deflationary pricing in wholesale products.

Also, Canadians need to understand the fundamentals of agribusiness at the producer level. On every farm is built in overhead costs regardless of the output or sales price. If the farmgate price of milk falls then there is an adjustment required to meet the overhead costs and that means milking more cows.

If the market becomes flooded with fluid milk far beyond consumption, are Canadians prepared to backstop the overage with support through dumping on the world market, like many other countries do?

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MarshaLouise's avatar

Except that when Canada exceeds its quota, they don’t have the sense to use the world markets, they just dump it.

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MarshaLouise's avatar

I just listened to the discussion on Batra’s Burning Questions, I have to comment that Kinsella needs to give his head a shake. He has a picture of the worst US president ever and the world’s biggest criminal on his wall. I wonder when mainstream media will reveal the truth about that heinous creature and his soon-to-be charges of seditious or treasonous conspiracy. Real media are already exposing it.

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