It is a practice that is replicated across Quebec, whose 7,300 maple syrup producers – mostly family-run farms – produce 70% of the world’s supply, worth more than 600m Canadian dollars.
The joke is that Quebec is the Saudi Arabia of maple syrup production, such is its dominance of the global market.
The problem for Mrs Grenier, and Quebec’s other so-called “maple syrup rebels”, is that they cannot freely sell their syrup.
Instead, since 1990 they have been legally required to hand over the bulk of what they produce to the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers (which in French-speaking Quebec is abbreviated to FPAQ).
Backed by the Canadian civil courts, the federation has the monopoly for selling Quebecois maple syrup on the wholesale market, and for exporting it outside the province. It sets the price for how much it pays producers, and it charges them a 12% fee per pound of syrup.
Producers are only allowed to sell independently a very small amount of syrup, to visitors to their farm, or to their local supermarket. And then they still have to pay the 12% commission to the FPAQ.
[…]
“The federation doesn’t have to be as coercive as it is now,” he says. “Its system is totalitarian and communist. Producers don’t have space to work, that is why most of them cheat.”
I wonder.
Do our local liberal friends support this?
After all, isn’t socialist Canada something they strive for? This is what socialism always results in when it comes to basic goods and services….moronic government run/ steered monopolies. Taking opportunity away and basic human rights away.