From the Fraser Institute

By Alex Whalen and Jake Fuss

Post-deregulation Australia’s dairy industry increased exports by $3 billion. Exports now account for more than 30 per cent of Australia’s total dairy production (and 20 per cent in New Zealand, which also ended its supply management system) compared to less than one per cent in Canada.

In one of the latest salvos in his trade war, President Trump recently took aim at supply management in Canada—a set of regulations that restricts  supply and controls imports to allow Canadian dairy producers of milk, eggs and poultry to maintain higher prices for their products than would otherwise exist in a competitive market.

In his attacks on Canada, Trump gets a lot wrong. But in fact, if Ottawa and the provinces dismantled our supply management system in a fair and productive way, it would be a rare win-win in trade negotiations with the Trump administration. And a win-win for both Canadian consumers and Canadian farmers.

For lessons in reform, Canada can look to other countries. For example, Australia’s dairy industry was heavily regulated for most of the 20th century, but by the 1990s, the weight of higher prices for supply-managed goods created public pressure for reform. The country also faced pressure from its trading partners to stop shielding its domestic dairy industry on grounds of fairness, much like the U.S. pressure Canada faces today.

So, around the turn of the century, the Australian government gradually dismantled its supply management system. Immediately following deregulation, milk prices fell by 12 cents per litre in Australia. Since then, prices have remained relatively flat, with price increases below the rate of inflation.

In other words, when the Australian dairy industry transitioned from a tightly-regulated protected industry to a more open industry with competition from both domestic and international firms, consumers reaped the rewards.

Of course, opponents of reform in Canada (including the dairy lobby) claim that supply management is necessary to help Canadian farmers survive and thrive. But in fact, after the Australian government eliminated supply management, the farming industry was arguably stronger. Some farmers exited the industry (and were compensated for doing so), and those that remained were more productive and more competitive in export markets.

In fact, post-deregulation Australia’s dairy industry increased exports by $3 billion. Exports now account for more than 30 per cent of Australia’s total dairy production (and 20 per cent in New Zealand, which also ended its supply management system) compared to less than one per cent in Canada. Despite Canada’s larger economy and population, both Australia and New Zealand export more dairy products than Canada.

At the same time, the Australian government introduced programs to financially support farmers to either help them adjust their operations or exit the industry. Farmers who remained in the industry experienced a 56 per cent increase in revenues and a substantial increase in the value of exports.

Moreover, according to a study from 2011, government subsidies for farmers equalled six per cent of total farm receipts in Australia and one per cent in New Zealand compared to 18 per cent in Canada. Which means that, due largely to Canada’s supply management system, the burden on taxpayers in Canada is far heavier than in those two countries.

Here in Canada, reform requires cooperation between the federal and provincial governments. Currently, Ottawa controls the trade component of supply management through restrictive import tariffs, while the provinces work alongside the federal government to regulate milk marketing boards, which set minimum prices for consumers.

In the face of President Trump’s aggressive trade actions, the premiers should agree to work with the Carney government to finally eliminate Canada’s arcane supply management system. It won’t be easy—politicians are slow to challenge entrenched interests and constituencies. But as the experience of our other allies clearly shows, governments can reform the dairy industry to the benefit of both consumers and farmers. There could be a silver lining to Trump’s attack on supply management in Canada.

Alex Whalen

Director, Atlantic Canada Prosperity, Fraser Institute

Jake Fuss

Director, Fiscal Studies, Fraser Institute

From LifeSiteNews

By Calvin Freiburger

Facebook parent company Meta will be working with conservative activist Robby Starbuck to keep political bias out of its artificial intelligence (AI) project in perhaps the most significant sign yet that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg really does want to change the tech giant’s left-wing ways for good.

The Hill reported that Starbuck, best known for his work bringing public attention to corporations’ “woke” practices and marshalling public pressure on them to change, and Meta have reached a settlement in the former’s defamation suit against the latter over Meta AI falsely identifying Starbuck as a participant in the January 6, 2021 riots at the U.S. Capitol.

The details of the settlement are not public beyond a joint statement announcing that “Meta and Robby Starbuck will work collaboratively in the coming months to continue to find ways to address issues of ideological and political bias and minimize the risk that the model returns hallucinations in response to user queries.”

Starbuck indicated he was pleased that his lawsuit achieved its loftiest goal: “fix this for everybody so this doesn’t become a massive, you know, really terrible story in the future where AI affects elections in ways that no one is comfortable with.”

The partnership appears to indicate a seismic shift at Meta, whose Facebook social network was for years one of the biggest offenders in left-wing bias and censorship in the tech world.

Last year, Zuckerberg began to acknowledge and disavow the social network’s compliance with Biden administration requests to censor content challenging establishment COVID-19 narratives, and announced in January 2025 that parent company Meta would be taking steps to “dramatically reduce the amount of censorship on our platforms.” The company also abandoned a number of diversity, equity & inclusion (DEI) policies, including the placement of female hygiene products in male restrooms.

In April, Meta laid out its goal to “remove bias” from its Llama 4 artificial intelligence language model, so that it “answers questions, can respond to a variety of different viewpoints without passing judgment, and doesn’t favor some views over others.” Later that month, the Meta Oversight Board ruled that two social media posts that “misgendered” gender-dysphoric individuals should remain standing as they did not violate the platform’s Hate Speech policy.

In March, Facebook announced community notes, inspired by an X (formerly Twitter) feature by the same name, which would “draw on a broader range of voices that exist on our platform to decide which content would benefit from additional information,” as an alternative to the platform’s previous “fact-checking” program, which was heavily criticized for relying on third-party groups that often had left-wing biases. 

Last month, the feature demonstrated its effectiveness and difference from the old days by correcting a false claim by former leading Democrat Hillary Clinton that Georgia pro-life laws were responsible for a woman’s death by sepsis in 2022 after taking abortion pills and that the attending hospital failed to proceed with a potentially life-saving procedure even though the state abortion ban would have allowed it.