



As was widely predicted, including in this column, U.S. President Donald Trump’s initial brinkmanship remarks about Canada and tariffs were his usual shock and awe technique for commencing negotiations. At his “Liberation Day” ceremony on the White House lawn on Wednesday, almost no new tariffs were proposed for Canada and his only direct references to Canada were about our exorbitant and antediluvian supply management measures that cushion the incomes of a large number of Canada’s farmers with artificially inflated prices. This has been a particular bugbear of People’s Party Leader Maxime Bernier and a ludicrous anomaly that we should not have needed the president of the United States to highlight for us. The best way to deal with farm income insufficiencies is direct income supplements to the farmers, not forcing the entire population to overpay for what they put on their breakfast table.