CHARLEBOIS: Supply management’s chicken import racket?

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Supply management is sold to Canadians as a promise: stable farms, reliable supply and predictable prices. But stability should never mean protection from scrutiny. Canadians paying for groceries deserve to know whose interests the rules actually serve.

Canada’s chicken import quotas are a good place to start.

Ottawa permits a limited quantity of foreign chicken to enter Canada at low or no import duty. These allowances are called tariff-rate quotas, or TRQs. Think of them as admission passes to a protected market. Ottawa decides which eligible businesses receive them.

In 2026, Canada provides approximately 121.6 million kilograms of chicken import access through its WTO, CUSMA and CPTPP commitments. These quantities are expressed in eviscerated equivalents, a standardized measure rather than simply the weight of products crossing the border.

Receiving an allocation does not mean receiving chicken. It means receiving permission to import chicken at the lower tariff. That distinction matters because the permission itself can have considerable commercial value.

Allocation holders can request government approval to transfer access to another eligible business. Where money changes hands, the buyer pays for permission before paying for the chicken, transportation or processing. Ottawa’s rules expressly provide for transfers, subject to approval.

The obvious question is why a business should have to pay another company for access that Ottawa allocated in the first place.

With allocation, foreign chicken could compete with domestic products

Maple Leaf Foods, Maple Lodge Farms, Olymel and Sofina Foods are major players in Canadian chicken processing. These businesses already operate plants, purchase Canadian chicken and supply other food companies. Import allocations can give established processors another advantage: access to foreign chicken that could compete with their domestic products.

Allocation formulas can reinforce that position. Under the CPTPP chicken policy, for example, 85% of access is allocated to processors according to market share, based on eligible processing and sales volumes. Businesses already handling more chicken can qualify for more access. Size becomes a basis for receiving another valuable privilege.

An industry source estimates that primary processors — the businesses slaughtering and initially processing chickens—receive approximately 75 million kilograms of access, roughly 62% of the total. That estimate refers to primary processors collectively; it should not be presented as a verified allocation to those four companies alone.

The same source reports substantial payments for transferring access. Yet the available information does not establish how much quota is transferred to smaller processors, the prices paid or the revenue collected by individual allocation holders.

The potential sums are significant. At an illustrative transfer price of $2 per kilogram, Canada’s annual chicken import allocations would carry an implied value of approximately $243.2 million. When smaller processors must pay for access, that expense becomes another cost of supplying food—one that can ultimately reach Canadians through higher prices. Ottawa grants the privilege; allocation holders can collect the payment, and consumers can end up footing the bill.

What public purpose does that serve?

Is available access being used effectively?

Transfers can be useful when business plans change. A practical system needs a way to move unused access to companies ready to import. But facilitating imports does not require Ottawa to preserve a private revenue opportunity for the original recipient.

There is also the question of whether available access is being used effectively.

The Canadian Association of Regulated Importers’ October 17 report, drawing on Global Affairs Canada data, showed permits issued for approximately 100.3 million kilograms of chicken, or 82.5% of annual access. About 21.3 million kilograms remained.

Those figures require care. The year was unfinished, and permits issued are not the same as completed imports. Remaining access does not, by itself, establish deliberate withholding.

It does justify asking whether return deadlines and reallocation procedures give other businesses enough time to source chicken, arrange transportation and bring it into Canada.

Ottawa should publish company-level allocations, consolidate affiliated businesses and disclose approved transfer volumes. It should require reporting of associated payments and publish enough information to establish who collects revenue, how much they collect and which businesses bear the cost.

Allocation policy should also place greater weight on whether a qualified business is ready to import and supply the Canadian market. Paid transfers should be phased out alongside a workable system for returning and reassigning unused access.

Supply management asks Canadians to accept restrictions on competition. That makes transparency more necessary, not less.

Import rights are supposed to bring additional food into the country. If the rules also allow businesses to collect money from others seeking to use those rights, Canadians deserve to see the bill.

Families already pay for the chicken. Ottawa should explain who gets paid for the permission.

– Sylvain Charlebois is director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University, co-host of The Food Professor Podcast.

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