Dairy Farmers Say Get the Facts not the Spin on USMCA

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Cattle Dairy
Cows can't graze on pasture all year, and the limited season has an impact on products' prices. Credit: iStock/Naumoid
Cattle Dairy
Cows can’t graze on pasture all year, and the limited season has an impact on products’ prices. Credit: iStock/Naumoid

OTTAWA – Dairy farmers across Canada want to make sure Canadians have the facts – not just the government spin – on what the new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) means for the Canadian dairy sector.

Spin

Fact

“It’s a good day for Canada.”

This is a bad outcome for dairy farmers and the whole dairy sector. The Government has conceded access to our domestic market to the US, affecting our ability to produce Canadian milk. By doing so, it is slowly bleeding Canada’s dairy sector.

“We will defend supply management”

For the US, this was never about supply management.  U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue said months ago “It’s not our purpose to try to manage or try to get involved in their internal supply management regarding the dairy industry….I made it very clear that the Class 7 designation we felt was an unfair undercutting of the U.S. industry that grew up south of the U.S.-Canada border.”

The Canadian government concessions equate to death by a thousand cuts.

“We look forward to ultimately signing a deal as long as it’s good for Canada and good for middle-class Canadians”.

The 220,000 Canadian families who depend on dairy for their livelihood (on farms, in processing plants and related jobs) feel they were used as a bargaining chip to conclude this agreement.

“No NAFTA deal is better than a bad NAFTA deal.”

This deal not only gives more access to the Canadian dairy market while limiting our ability to produce and export home-grown dairy products; this deal lets the Americans dictate our dairy policies. Fairer trade is about win-win results.  If our government fought for a good deal for Canadian industry, it wasn’t dairy.

Dairy Farmers of Canada (DFC) is the national policy, lobbying and promotional organization representing Canada’s farmers. DFC strives to create stable conditions for the Canadian dairy sector, today and in the future. It works to maintain policies that foster the viability of Canadian dairy farming and promote dairy products and their health benefits.

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