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Some may read this and naturally say "So buy butter from another country!". I'm here to tell you that this is basically impossible due to protectionist laws. T
by mabbo 6y ago
Some may read this and naturally say "So buy butter from another country!". I'm here to tell you that this is basically impossible due to protectionist laws.
There are theoretically ways to import butter to Canada, but you need a special license, and there are very strict quotas. Generally, only large dairy corporations can get them, and only to handle major shortage.
In my entire life spent mostly in Canada, I have never seen butter being advertised as being from another country. Cheese, definitely, but never butter.
Even trying to bring some home with you from a vacation isn't allowed. It would be taken if declared at the border, and destroyed. Failure to declare it is a crime.
Why? The Canadian dairy industry is an incredibly powerful lobby group. All they have to do is point to the very low standards in the USA and say "if we let foreign dairy in, we'll be exposing Canadians to that". Liberal governments and Conservative governments alike pander to them endlessly.
- cbozeman 6y agoI know this is a serious issue for Canadians, but I can't help but laugh my ass off at the fact that you literally have an American-Prohibition-Era "Big Dairy" cartel that fucking extorts the little guy through government interference and corruption. I'm LOL'ing just thinking about it.
- mabbo 6y agoIt's one of those things that if you think too hard about it, you laugh, until you realize that it's actually real and you live under it's nonsense and then you cry instead.
- WanderPanda 6y agoAs long as it is restricted to dairy it's funny, but whats really sad is that a majority of people want ever more of this kind of centralization and regulation. I have a feeling that many western countries are on a slow downwards spiral to become "shithole countries". Let's see whose constitution is strongest and allows the people to buy the f*ing dairy they want. I bet this will not be our EU, the protectionist mastermind
- belval 6y agoAll joking aside though, it is more complicated than a "big dairy cartel" with strong lobbying power. See what happens at least in Quebec is that we kept the family agriculture model with single family actually owning there farm and a hundred cows. In that context, they can't be competitive with US milk which has megafarms and can mass produce basically any animal product these days. To solve this issue the government create the milk quotas and limited imports of milk from the US. While I agree that it creates a somewhat absurd situation, I disagree that it's necessarily a bad thing. I much prefer drinking milk from my farmer friend who takes good care of his cows than some megafarm in the US.
- throw0101a 6y ago> In that context, they can't be competitive with US milk which has megafarms and can mass produce basically any animal product these days. On top of that, the US government subsidizes/bails out those mega-farms as well. US dairy consumption has been going down for decades, and yet production volume is up. Milk is being dumped into the (metaphorical? literal?) gutter because of over-production. See also EU: > Multibillion-euro dairy multinationals are exploiting rock-bottom European milk prices to expand aggressively into West Africa. Over five years, they have nearly tripled their exports to the region, shipping milk powder produced by heavily subsidized European farmers to be transformed into liquid milk for the region's booming middle class. * https://www.politico.eu/article/eus-milk-scramble-for-africa/ https://www.politico.eu/article/eus-milk-scramble-for-africa... AFAICT, the only country that has a completely open market is New Zealand.
- cbozeman 6y ago> Milk is being dumped into the (metaphorical? literal?) gutter because of over-production. I truly hope this isn't the case, because I love cheese and would gladly do my part to help get rid of the excess production.
- throw0101a 6y ago* https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/15/business/milk-dumping-coronavirus/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/15/business/milk-dumping-coronav...
- fennecfoxen 6y agoWhat a pity. Down here even the regular grocery stores will have Kerrygold (grass fed Irish butter), and the fancy gourmet stores will have imports from Iceland and France and Belgium and New Zealand as well. My favorite is Isigny Ste Mere.
- mabbo 6y agoNot joking, my friends and I have discussed the idea of actually smuggling Kerrygold into the country illegally. Buy it in bulk and freeze it until needed. None of us have the nerve to do it.
- macNchz 6y agoLooks like someone is bringing Kerrygold into Canada...it will only cost you 10x what it should! https://www.amazon.ca/Kerrygold-Pure-Irish-Butter-Unsalted/dp/B001LNPHNA/ref=mp_s_a_1_1 https://www.amazon.ca/Kerrygold-Pure-Irish-Butter-Unsalted/d...
- cat199 6y ago> All they have to do is point to the very low standards in the USA and say "if we let foreign dairy in, we'll be exposing Canadians to that". Don't know about the standards - wouldn't be surprised that they are lower - but I don't recall hearing much if anything about safety issues at any kind of frequency - so what would they be 'exposing' people to??
- OJFord 6y ago> Cheese, definitely Also outrageously quota'd. If any Europeans want a good laugh-slash-cry, search 'cheese' on a Canadian supermarket site. (I'm sure Canadians make nice stuff too, and why wouldn't Quebec produce plenty of 'French' cheeses, but you'd have to learn what the rough equivalents are called, because it's not going to have its protected-origin name. (And then there's all the stuff that's sliced or shredded or squirty, and heavily coloured, that seems way more popular in NA. But I don't include that in being sure they make 'nice stuff'. ;)))
- BenjiWiebe 6y agoMy relatives in Manitoba can bring cheese across the border into Canada, and they declare it at the border. $20/person is allowed for dairy products.