Speakeasy forum: Canadian trade cartel robbed of $18 million worth of.....

overseen by various Provincial product Boards or Pools in order to stabilize revenues for the farmers who produce the goods. The Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, the Manitoba Lumber Board, all put in place in order to stabilize producer's prices. This Maple Syrup Federation, sound exactly the same. But any producer who controls so much of the product is in place to play games with it, as the Oil Companies have proven over decades by jacking up the price at the pumps every weekend, and OPEC has since the 70's with its manipulation of the price of oil.

Milk poultry and pork are all handled the same way. This is not a cartel in the old meaning of large producers colluding to fix prices, or to protect an illegal product like a drug cartel. This is a corporation represnting thousands of smaller producers created at the behest and with the approval of the Canadian government via the democratic process whose charge is to keep prices high enough to support continued production, but not too high for consumption. Now Quebec approaches the management of things rather more like OPEC than any of the other Boards or producers Federations. Since Quebec sees itself surrounded by English speakers, they have a much more "elbows out" response. Their Federation, knowing it holds 70% of the world's supply, are bent on maximizing profits, not simply supporting the producers. It is a perversion of the intent of that sort of "production board or federation" but is in line with Quebec politics and social attitudes. From personal experience, Quebec is a little like the Deep South. Show up there with an out-of-province license plate, and be prepared for tickets.

For Maple Syrup part of the issue is the destruction of habitat and resources elsewhere. New England used to be virtually self sufficient in Maple Syrup production, but isn't now partly because so many trees have been weakened by pollution from Pennsylvania's former Iron and Steel works. Ontario's Maple Syrup production has been struck hard by the pollution from industrial Cleveland, and other Ontario production ruined by the Super Stack at Sudbury, Ontario Canada, which was designed with pollution control equipment which was never bought or installed. Photographs from space show a long scar across Ontario and into Quebec where trees have been sickened and killed by Sulphites and Sulfates released by the smelting process.

Rob

Don't use much maple syrup but I buy during the maple festival and it lasts all year.

Diana