A taboo subject among all, a real elephant in the room that no one wants to see, the UPA union monopoly was the subject of a surprising debate during the national council of Québec solidaire (QS), last weekend in Saguenay.
Surprising because it was the first time since the first-class burial of the Pronovost report on the future of agriculture, in 2008, for the crime of lèse-majesté against this famous monopoly, that the question of union pluralism in agriculture attracted attention like this. Surprising also because it was the work of a political party known as “Montrealist” and with no real roots in the rural world.
The activists narrowly chose to maintain QS’s opposition to this monopoly, but we clearly feel that this is only a postponement.
What about this union monopoly 52 years after its establishment by the Agricultural Producers Act? Progressive force, essential bulwark for the defense of farmers, as QS activists have affirmed, or bulwark of the status quo and a lead on any change to our agricultural programs and policies, as others have shouted. high and loud ?
Let us first say that this is a unique situation on the planet, at least in the so-called democratic world. Nowhere else is the right of association defined by the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights limited in this way. Everywhere else, two or three agricultural associations reflect the diversity of interests, regions and modes of production, without preventing a union that is stronger than the others from asserting itself on issues of national interest.
Let us also say that in the early 1970s, when this union monopoly was granted by law, it was undoubtedly necessary. It was the time of the great modernization of our agriculture, with the advent of supply management, mixed marketing programs, as well as major support mechanisms, such as income stabilization insurance and protection of agricultural land. We can believe that these major reforms would not have been possible without the support of a single union as the agricultural world was divided on most of these issues.
The problem is that these policies and programs have not evolved, essentially, for around fifty years, while the reality of agriculture no longer has much to do with what it was in the 1970s and 1980s. Our agriculture has become both enormously specialized and diversified. Technology, markets and our policies have led to the creation of ever larger companies, to the detriment of the average farm, while more and more young people, attracted by organic and different models, are knocking on the door without still be able to enter. It is clear that the single union, necessary in the good old days, today has everything of a corset that is cracking everywhere.
The Pronovost report, shelved 16 years ago following the UPA’s “niet”, already recommended a major overhaul of our agricultural policies and programs, starting with the establishment of union pluralism and support universal to farms, regardless of their size, production or region. It was necessary, said the report, to open the windows of the agricultural fortress to a wind of diversity, innovation and freshness.
Let’s be clear: the UPA is a great institution. It played a role that could be described as civilizing, as the Catholic Church did in its good years. Condemning its monopoly is not condemning the UPA, which its leadership seems incapable of admitting. In its defense, let us also say that if it occupies so much space in the agricultural landscape, it is because the State has withdrawn a lot from one re-engineering to another.
But there is a deeper cause for the omnipotence of the UPA: money. Few people realize it, but our agricultural laws give the UPA a quasi-right of “taxation without representation” because of its control, through its specialized federations, over mixed marketing programs. Each product that passes through this mechanism — a rabbit, a dozen eggs or a gallon of milk — generates a fee for the administration of the mixed program, advertising and other useful and legitimate functions.
This represents colossal sums for which the UPA has little accountability and which serve as the basis for the great influence it exercises from one end to the other of the spectrum of our agricultural institutions, of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAPAQ) to research centers, including our universities. This influence is not necessarily bad; the problem is that it has no counterweight, not even that of the State, terrified of seeing the tractors take to the streets if it dares to displease the UPA.
The QS national council has shown it: a debate on the UPA union monopoly is extremely divisive. It is difficult, it requires courage, but it is more necessary than ever.