Sarah Rennie – LJI reporter
Quebec Premier François Legault met with representatives from the Union des Producteurs Agricoles (UPA), as well as representatives from Agropur, the Solio Cooperative Group, and the Conseil de la Transformation Alimentaire du Québec during a visit to the Huntingdon riding on April 10.
Legault spoke with the different agricultural organizations about the potential impacts of tariffs imposed by the U.S. administration, and about the eventual renegotiation of the Canada-United States-Mexico trade agreement.
Following this, the premier toured the family-run Ferme P.Cécyre dairy farm in Sainte-Martine, where he talked with owners Pierre and Philippe Cécyre and their families about the farm and its history, their production, and the use of robotic milking technologies. “They work hard. It is seven days a week,” said Legault, after visiting the dairy barn. “We need to thank our farmers,” he added.
In an exclusive interview with The Gleaner, the premier spoke candidly about the importance of supply management and of defending the interests of farmers in trade negotiations.
Legault acknowledges there were concessions made in 2017 that impacted dairy farmers. “I made a commitment that there would be no de facto concessions on supply management,” he insisted, noting he was pleased to see federal leaders doubling down on this commitment during the election campaign.
“If we want to be able to continue to have small farms across all the regions of Quebec, we must protect supply management,” Legault maintained.
In Quebec, the supply management system regulates production through the allocation of quotas to match market demand. This provides financial stability to farms while ensuring a steady supply of local products, by establishing prices based on production costs and other factors and by controlling imports. Supply management affects the production of milk and dairy products, chicken, turkey, and eggs.
According to the Ministère de l’Agriculture, des Pêcheries et de l’Alimentation, there were more than 5,360 quota-holding producers operating in Quebec under the supply management system in 2023. These farms produced 3.48 billion litres of milk, 409,000 metric tons of chicken and turkey meat, and 178.7 million dozen of eggs.
The province was entirely self-sufficient for chicken meat, fluid milk, and dairy products apart from cream. Quebec farmers produced almost 100 per cent of our turkey consumption and met around 80 per cent of the demand for eggs and cream.