The former Liberal MP trying to foment a milk rebellion

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This is a conversation series by Donna Kennedy-Glans, a writer and former Alberta cabinet minister, featuring newsmakers and intriguing personalities.

“The dairy lobby is the National Rifle Association of Canada,” proclaims Martha Hall Findlay, former Liberal MP and now head of the University of Calgary’s school of public policy. Her ballpark estimate is that the dairy industry in Canada spent upwards of $100 million a year to lobby for and market dairy over a decade ago, making them “the wealthiest and most influential lobby in the country.”

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It’s difficult to figure out how much the dairy lobby spends today, but one thing’s certain, they wield a whack of influence. In April, Canadian senators voted 58-12 in favour of Bill C-282, a private member’s bill sponsored by Bloc Québécois MP Luc Thériault to ban supply management from being included in future trade talks. In 2023, the bill sailed through the House of Commons, endorsed by all political party leaders. Now the bill is on its way to the Senate foreign affairs committee, one hopes, for sober second thought.

When I meet with Martha in her office at the U of C’s downtown Calgary campus — to talk about this idea of making supply management non-negotiable in future trade deals — she’s in fine fighting form. After a woman-to-woman exchange of breast cancer survival stories, I pick up the wee plastic milk cow resting on the table between us and we launch into the dicey question of supply management. In 2010, just prior to her bid for the federal Liberal leadership (she lost to Justin Trudeau), Martha dug deep into this issue, declaring supply management an anathema to Canada’s wider trade agenda.

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“The one potential positive of Bill-282 is, it is so over the top that it will backfire and it will finally be the time when enough people in this country realize we have to deal with this,” declares Martha.

And “it is so egregious,” she argues, other countries will realize what we’re doing, pointing to the U.K.’s recent withdrawal from trade talks with Canada in large measure over their lack of access to our supply-managed markets, with…