Darrel Pearson comments in the National Post on Chuck Schumer, minority leader in the U.S. Senate, pressuring Ottawa over protections for its dairy industry, saying the Canadian government is “evading its commitments” under the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement.

Darrel says that Canada’s trading partners have for decades criticized the country’s supply managed dairy industry, which inhibits foreign competitors from accessing the Canadian market.

“This supply management system has been in place for a long time, and unless Canada and the United States explicitly negotiated an exception to how the system was being administered, one would expect it to be administered as it always has been.”

Pearson said U.S. negotiators might have expected Canada to allocate a portion of the TRQs directly to American suppliers — an expectation that would have conflicted with many years of past experience, he said.

“I must say I’m amazed that they’re waking up to this at the eleventh hour,” he said.