Colby Cosh relates the details of how well stage-managed the Conservative convention in Halifax was … from the point of view of the beneficiaries of supply management:
A copy of a “briefing binder” that the Dairy Farmers of Canada had given to representatives of supply-managed agriculture was carelessly discarded, found by a Calgary delegate named Matthew Bexte, and splattered onto the internet. The contents of the binder describe the strategy and outline the available forces of the supply-management squad. The resolutions being discussed by the convention included one favouring the repeal of expensive tariff protection for Canada’s egg, dairy, and poultry cartels, and the binder lists the particular responses and tactics to be used depending on how far the offending free-trade resolution advanced in the debate.
Which it didn’t. The motion in favour of letting Canadian suckers buy foreign cheese in dangerous unregulated quantities died noisily in a “breakout session,” never even reaching a vote, much less the plenary session of the convention. As the National Post’s uncannily versatile Marie-Danielle Smith documented before the briefing book was leaked, free-trade delegates had already caught the scent of a rat, complaining that the motion had been suppressed through strategic delay by operatives working for party leader Andrew Scheer.
The Dairy Farmers of Canada briefing describes this motion-suppression tactic as “Scenario 2,” calling it a “sub-optimal” outcome: “It buys us (supply-managed farmers) a reprieve, but doesn’t put the issue to rest.” According to the briefing notes, if the motion had passed in the Friday breakout session, that would plunge the world into “Scenario 3.” Under Scenario 3, a Friday evening reception at an Irish pub, with free food and potables, would come into play: quota-sucking farmers and their public-relations goons would have been given a chance to mingle with well-lubricated CPC delegates, with “infographics on a slideshow” pulsing subliminally in the background.
The hope here would be to prevent a devastating “Scenario 5,” in which the destruction of supply management came before the whole CPC assembly for a vote and won it. The prospective talking points accompanying Scenario 5 warn that “Members of the Conservative Party of Canada have sent a clear signal that they do not support Canadian farmers” and they hiss menacingly that “Canadians will remember the position taken by Conservatives today.”
Fortunately, even in the event of a flat-out Scenario 5, there would still be what the book calls the “Safety Net.” The safety net is that annual party conventions are meaningless, expensive balderdash anyway. Or, as the Dairy Farmers of Canada (DFC) book puts it: “The powers of the Leader are far-reaching in preventing a policy from being in the party platform. DFC has been told by the Leader’s office that he will exercise this power … regardless of the outcome at convention.”
Good old Andrew … he knows who put him in his current position and has signalled in advance that he’ll “stay bought”. Too bad for Canadian consumers, but great news for the leeches who benefit from the market distortions of supply management.
