During the interlude between my publishing dates, there was much lowing by columnists about "supply-management," specifically dairy, at several major papers across the country.
I've cited my own aversion to our supply management system many times, particularly as it relates to the cost of groceries and the impediment it causes to change in economic norms. While locally-sourced food is all the rage these days, a distant dairy oligopoly udderly refuses to loosen its grip.
If it's not clear yet, I'll be milking these puns until the cows come home. But in all seriousness, this little kerfuffle over one of Canada's single biggest market embarrassments - an affront to ethical business practices and the economic realities that often face the poorest families - is a good sign.
For if we can truly commit to sending this policy to the slaughterhouse, we might live to embrace more freedom elsewhere.
The fact of the matter is Canadians are indeed herd animals - they go quite willingly to wherever the pathetically small bandwidth of socio-politico-economic thought will lead them. If there is a single Canadian virtue, it is simply uncritical sanctimony: we are so proud of not being like our unruly, violent, uneducated cousins to the south that with malice aforethought, we make golden calves out of everything: healthcare, NHL allegiances, the state broadcaster - even cows.
Supply management is a solution from another era to a problem of another era. Yes, back in the day, a lack of standardized milk purification regulations and enforcement caused the death of many children. Today, the likeliness of that to happen - due to our own increase in health and the invention of simple to add antibiotics as well as portable refrigeration - is astronomically less.
If you really want to "but think of the children," never take them in the car for a family drive ever again; even if unpasteurized milk starts hitting the shelves tomorrow, more children will die in automobile accidents this year than from an endless supply of unmanaged milk. Guaranteed.
I'm not being ironic when I say that this policy needs to die so that we might live; the fact of the matter is that this country is institutionally and systemically mismanaging its future by clinging to bad ideas from the past.
In the end, as the bad ideas are preserved for a certain generation of citizens and as new standards are placed on my generation to make up the gap in revenue, I promise you that genuine resentment is likely to become outright malicious political intent.
The reason this conversation about supply management is even happening is that our political class, especially our prime minister, has been cowed by the bull in a china shop approach of a certain Mr. Trump.
President Trump has our supply-management in his NAFTA burning cross hairs, and so finally, after years of our self-serving rulers defending this unethical, unhelpful practice, Canadians might actually have the chance to cow-kick this policy once and for all.
As a final exhortation, let me remind you that there are basically two ways to go after these much needed policy changes: the nice way and the "burn everything to ground" way.
In the former, a happy warrior appears just in time to save us from disaster and lead us out of the desert of unsustainable state interference to a land of liberty for all by a series of laws and repeals that empower citizens to make their own decisions on everything from guns to gouda.
But in the latter, and more likely scenario, the self-entitled oligarchs crucify the happy warrior, setting the stage for outright rebellion and angry agenda setting. The political class is disenfranchised, and the onslaught of destruction will not be stemmed, even for good policies.
Who thought so much could be at stake over a little spilled milk?
