LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF ONTARIO

Wednesday 5 December 2007
MEMBERS’ STATEMENTS
Chicken industry

Mr. Toby Barrett: The chicken farmers of Ontario are with us here today to share some prime poultry and inform us on some issues. They’re having a reception tonight at five o’clock. Come on out, have some wings and learn a bit about our farmers and what they produce.

The broiler growers have long ensured both the safety and the quality of our local chicken industry, while also negotiating prices to be paid to all Ontario chicken farmers by all Ontario processors. For Ontario’s 1,100 broiler producers, trade issues have not gone, and will not go, away. Canada needs to be able to negotiate a reasonable, sensitive product category at the WTO, one which will give us enough room to include all supply-managed products while maintaining current over-quota tariffs and preventing any increase in quota access. Interprovincial marketing of chicken is also creating challenges.

Broiler production remains an ever-changing industry, one in which the growing retail monopolies pose increasing marketing challenges. As MPPs we must all continue the job of helping to help others to understand the economic benefits of supply management. I say this as we used to raise broilers before supply management and we paid the price. The three-legged stool of supply management sustains farm country: Effective import controls, production controls and the ability to set the price.