I know it's been a while since you all have had the privilege of listening to me bitching, so I'll not waste any time. I want to talk about farm subsidies.

I know what you're thinking: "Why would he want to rant about something that keeps food prices low?" Well here's the dirty little secret nobody's telling you. They actually INCREASE food prices.

That's right, farm subsidies RAISE the cost of food.

Let's pretend we live in a fantasy land where capitalism actually works. Market forces would force milk to around $4.00 per litre. Right now, you can go to the grocery store and pay probably around $1.50 though, so subsidies are good, right? Wrong.

You see...farm subsidies come out of the government's general revenues, which means they are financed with tax dollars. Let's pretend for a moment that your total tax bill amounts to $2.50.

Under a subsidy program, the tax man takes your $2.50 and runs to Ottawa. Once there, he runs into some angry farmers yelling "We need a subsidy to compete!" So the tax man says "Here ya go!" and hands him $2.00.

Now, between the $1.50 you paid for the milk at the grocery store, and the $2.50 the tax man just gave to the farmer, you've just paid $4.00 for a litre of milk. But the tax man didn't give the farmer $2.50 did he? ? No, he only gave the farmer $2.00 and pocketed the other $0.50 for himself. You're still out $4.00, but the farmer has only recieved $3.50. Now multiply that by 3 million litres of milk per day, and you've got some serious tax grabbing going on.

But it gets worse.

Let's pretend you don't even buy milk. When was the last time you got to fill in a "Didn't buy any milk this year" deduction on your tax forms? You didn't, did you? So you are still paying for milk, even though you don't drink it. So where does all of that extra revenue go? Who knows. It disappears somewhere down the black pit of Ottawa embezzlement.

Now, Canadian farm subsidy isn't really that big of an operation. The real problem starts when we begin importing food from countries with heavy farm subsidies, like the States. The US government (and a whole host of European governments as well) suck up all of that subsidy tax grab money from their populations, then dump the price-reduced food on our doorstep. Naturally, our government refuses to subsidise our own farmers (rightfully so), so our farmers go out of business trying to compete with these foriegn producers. Our farmers go bankrupt one by one, and their land and equipment gets snatched up by big foriegn commercial farms and continue the cycle. All while our own government watches.

"Well if subsidizing our own farmers is bad, how do we stop the destruction of the Canadian farm industry?"

The T-word. Tarriffs.

Any food we import from countries with heavy farm subsidies should be subject to tarriffs. Of course, this will never happen. Agribusiness have too big a stake in forming their monopolies to allow it to happen, besides, farm subsidies are a great tax grab for the government.

And tarriffs are only part of the problem. What happens if there's a war in Iran? "Well what's a war in Iran got to do with farm subsidy?" Let me explain.

If there were a war in Iran tomorrow, the first thing the Iranian government would do is start sinking oil tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz. I'll save the in-depth tactical analysis for another time, but suffice it to say that 1 well-aimed cruise missle could halt the transport of around 17 million barrels of oil per day. That would STRANGLE the global oil market. Prices would shoot through the roof.

Well, since so much of our food is transported from very long distances (sometimes the other side of the world), prices for imported food would rise so quickly that the bulk of the population would be priced right out of the market. Local suppliers would be forced to raise prices as well, but there would still be shortfalls. Our "just in time" food supply chain would be crippled and local producers could not possibly ramp up production to compensate. Imagine tomorrow 50% of our food supply was no longer present. How long do you think it takes to grow a tomato? Store shelves would be empty in 3 days or less, and people would starve. Not a pretty picture.

So do us all a favour. Buy local.