Quebec’s “autocratic” control of maple syrup makers, a reign of terror which relies on bailiffs, guards and also the courts, is crippling the province’s most celebrated export, and also the province needs to abandon its maple syrup quotas, says a new report.
How a maple syrup rebellion is rising in Quebec
Fighting to have their syrup from the hands of the powerful Quebec monopoly, producers sneak barrels by night, offer a underground community as well as flee the province.
Continue reading.
The report, released Thursday, warns that New York State alone boasts more maple trees than Quebec, and the United States could become self-sufficient in maple syrup in Ten years, destroying the province’s biggest syrup export market.
Quebec’s agriculture minister Pierre Paradis ordered the report last May after an article in the Financial Post described a pitched battle between some producers and the federation of syrup makers.
In a system made to give producers a good price, the syrup federation tells each producer just how much syrup they might make, may be the sole authorized buyer of the syrup, sets one price for syrup, judges syrup quality and pays producers only when it sells their product.
Florent Gagn’s 69-page report, that they gave towards the minister two months ago, notes that, “In an article titled ‘Maple Syrup Rebellion’ in the Financial Post, journalist Peter Kuitenbrouwer describes with strong details the strained relations between your federation and lots of of its members. Other media then elaborated on … spectacular seizures of barrels of syrup from producers and the surveillance of syrup producers by security guards hired through the federation, whose bills were then delivered to the targeted producers.”
The federation tried to label the rebel syrup producers as “a few obstinate members,” Gagn notes, but “there’s no question that the malaise is much larger than the federation cares to confess.
“Many producers feel a serious frustration with ‘their’ union, which they see as a distant and authoritarian bureaucracy which defends a rigid system and it is own corporate interests instead of its members,” writes Gagn.
Some producers told Gagn that the federation orders these to reveal the names of every individual who purchased from them a can of maple syrup, or they’ll be cut removed from farm subsidies. Producers must reveal their clients, electricity or oil bills, quantity of taps in trees, sugar bush rental agreements, bank and financial statements for several years.
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“It’s hard to understand the objective of these detailed demands from the federation, other than to throw around its absolute power,” writes Gagn.
While the amount of taps Quebec producers have place in maple trees (some trees take several tap) has tripled to 43 million in 2015, Quebec’s share of the world’s maple syrup production has fallen.
“Producers outside Quebec benefit from the fixed Quebec price but don’t have any quotas and needn’t bring about marketing costs,” Gagn notes.
Paradis warned at a news conference Thursday that, “When the Americans choose to attack – you are able to speak with suppliers of Quebec maple syrup equipment, who’ve most of their business over the border. We have to look for a market on this side. We’d 80 per cent of the market, we went to 70 per cent, and now we’re going to 60 per cent. Is that the direction you want to go?”
We should abandon the syrup quota system
Quebec has forbidden increases in syrup production since 2009, even while world demand for syrup skyrockets, the report notes. “We ought to abandon the syrup quota system,” the report says.
Quebec should allow producers to sell bulk syrup with whom they want, and that the federation should worry about syrup quality, not just quantity, the report adds.
Syrup producer Angle Grenier welcomed the report.
Last year the federation seized all 35 barrels of syrup from Grenier’s sugar shack in St. Clotilde de Beauce, Que., and has only paid her 65 per cent from the value.
“They are witholding my money so I can’t defend myself,” she said.
In January, even while she fought in an appeal court in Quebec City for permission to export syrup to New Brunswick, the federation obtained a court injunction to get her 2016 syrup, which she has not produced.
She welcomed the Gagn report.
“I’m fighting for freedom,” she said.
Rapport Gagn – Version Anglaise
Financial Post
pkuitenbrouwer@nationalpost.com
Twitter.com/pkuitenbrouwer
