Quebec’s ‘autocratic’ control over maple syrup producers in need of major overhaul: provincial report

Quebec’s “autocratic” charge of maple syrup makers, a reign of terror which relies on bailiffs, security guards and also the courts, is crippling the province’s most celebrated export, and the province needs to abandon its maple syrup quotas, says a brand new report.

How a maple syrup rebellion is rising in Quebec

Fighting to have their syrup from the hands from the powerful Quebec monopoly, producers sneak barrels by night, deal in a black market and even flee the province.

Continue reading.

The report, released Thursday, warns that Ny State alone boasts more maple trees than Quebec, and the Usa turn into self-sufficient in maple syrup in 10 years, destroying the province’s biggest syrup export market.

Quebec’s agriculture minister Pierre Paradis ordered the report last May after an article within the Financial Post described a pitched battle between some producers and the federation of syrup makers.

In a method made to give producers a fair price, the syrup federation tells each producer how much syrup they might make, may be the sole authorized buyer from 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 to the minister 8 weeks ago, notes that, “Within an article titled ‘Maple Syrup Rebellion’ within the Financial Post, journalist Peter Kuitenbrouwer describes with strong details the strained relations between your federation and many of their members. Other media then elaborated on … spectacular seizures of barrels of syrup from producers and also the surveillance of syrup producers by guards hired through the federation, whose bills were then sent to the targeted producers.”

The federation attempted to label the rebel syrup producers as “a few obstinate members,” Gagn notes, but “there’s no question the malaise is a lot larger than the federation cares to admit.

“Many producers feel a serious frustration with ‘their’ union, that they see as a distant and authoritarian bureaucracy which defends a rigid system and its own corporate interests rather than its members,” writes Gagn.

Some producers told Gagn the federation orders them to reveal what they are called of each and every individual who purchased from them a can of maple syrup, or they’ll be slashed off from farm subsidies. Producers must reveal their clients, electricity or oil bills, number of taps in trees, sugar bush rental agreements, bank and financial statements for many years.

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“It’s confusing the purpose of these detailed demands in the federation, other than to throw around its absolute power,” writes Gagn.

While the amount of taps Quebec producers have put 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 take advantage of the fixed Quebec price but have no quotas and needn’t contribute to 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 find a market on this side. We had 80 per cent of the market, we visited 70 per cent, and now we’re going to 60 percent. Would be that the direction we 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 to whom they wish, which 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 percent of the value.

“They are witholding my money so I can’t defend myself,” she said.

In January, even while she fought within an appeal court in Quebec City for permission to export syrup to New Brunswick, the federation got a new court injunction to seize 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