The Trajectory of Three Marketing Boards in Canada: Gone, Going… and Curiously Persistent
The Trajectory of Three Marketing Boards in Canada: Gone, Going… and Curiously Persistent BRYAN P. SCHWARTZ INTRODUCTION overnment operated single-desk marketing boards were a feature of the Canadian agricultural economy for much of the 20th and G 21st centuries. However, their future viability and existence is now the subject of increasing criticism and doubt. This essay seeks to explain general trends by comparing and contrasting the past, present, and projected future of three schemes: the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB), the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation (FFMC), and the Canadian Dairy Commission (CDC). At one time the CWB was the largest grain marketing board in the world1, but after briefly being reduced to an option for producers as a dual-desk marketing board, the CWB has now been fully privatized. The FFMC has lost exclusive control in many jurisdictions, most recently ceasing to operate as a single-desk entity in Manitoba, and now operating as a single-desk only in the Northwest Territories. At the same time, the CDC continues to persevere despite both international pressure from partners to new free trade agreements that seek to reduce its authority, and domestic criticism that it is inefficient, hurts the disadvantaged, and stifles innovation. Professor and Asper Chair in International Business and Trade Law, Faculty of Law, University of Manitoba, Co-Editor-in-Chief, Manitoba Law Journal. 1 Brian Mayes, “Blame Canada: American Trade Complaints against the Canadian Wheat Board” (2002) 2 Asper Rev of Intl Bus and Trade L 135 at 135 [Mayes]. Three Marketing Boards in Canada 161 This essay reviews the theory of marketing boards and then compares the histories of the three different boards, the current developments in their operation, and the likely future of the boards or their successors.
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