Canada’s municipal politicians strongly support supply management, poll finds
By Amanda Brodhagen, Farms.com
A survey commissioned by the Egg Farmers of Canada, conducted by Ipsos Reid in March and April 2013 found that mayors and reeves from across the country overwhelmingly support Canada’s supply managed agricultural industries – dairy, eggs and poultry.
The primary research suggests that out of the 124 municipal politicians that were interviewed, 53% said they were familiar with supply management. Once the policy was explained to the participants, 87% expressed their support for the system, with 40% indicating that they were very supportive. The poll findings indicate that 90% of respondents agreed that supply management was important to their communities. Half of the respondents – 50% said that they have supply managed agricultural industries in their community. The results were also broken down by region: 64% of Ontario municipal leaders said they had supply management in their municipality, followed by Quebec at 59% and Western Canada at 44%. The local politicians that represent medium-sized communities’ populations of 5,000 to 50,000 with supply management industries said it was important, with 62% saying it was very important. The results have a margin of error of +/-8.7 percentage points 19 times out of 20.
Consumer-based research that was conducted earlier this year indicated that 40% of Canadians know about supply management. Out of the respondents who understood the system, 71% said they “strongly supported it”. It should be noted that this research was also commissioned by the Egg Farmers of Canada. Egg Farmers of Canada Chair, Peter Clarke said in a news release that supply management creates a stable environment for family farms – which contributes more than $25 billion a year to the economy and supports 300,000 jobs.
The survey results were presented at the annual Federation of Canadian Municipalities conference held in Vancouver.
