Marketing Boards: The Canadian Experience

This paper provides an overview of the development of Canadian marketing boards and an assessment of their current situation. Broadly defined, marketing boards are legislatively specified compulsory marketing institutions which perform any of the functions of marketing on behalf of the producers of particular agricultural commodities. Boards include marketing institutions whose members or directors are elected by agricultural producers, bodies whose members are appointed by government, such as the Canadian Wheat Board, and some marketing agencies or commissions. In 1985 some 136 boards regulated 56% of the value of agricultural products produced and sold in Canada, or about 75% of agricultural output if the educational and promotional bodies are included. Thus, boards continue to be a prominent feature of agricultural policy in Canada. The development of marketing boards in Canada has many similarities to the development of legislatively specified marketing institutions in other countries, and yet, because of the different social, political, and legislative environments in which they have developed, there are also many differences. Their evolution in Canada reflects dual jurisdictional authority over agriculture and marketing as well as changing social and political attitudes towards government intervention. In tracing the history of their legislative basis, four groups of Canadian boards can be identified. These include, first, provincial producer-controlled marketing boards for products that are traded locally as well as across provincial boundaries and in export markets. These boards operate under complementary provincial and federal legislative authority. Second, there are boards established for products such as fluid milk, earlier sold only in very localized markets, for which specific provincial legislation alone was required. Third, there are federal boards for commodities sold primarily across provincial boundaries or in export markets. The Canadian Wheat Board is the prime ex mple. Finally, the most recent federal marketing boards are the bodies established under federal legislation since 1972 that collaborate with provincial supply-management boards to apply national market sharing plans. Although established somewhat earlier, the Canadian Dairy Commission could also be included with these boards.