Debut of REGULATIONWATCH

In the tradition of PLVQ's hugely successful "ARAFATWATCH", which chronicled the final days of history's worst terrorist and analysed the concomitant geopolitical ramifications, comes "REGULATIONWATCH", a sporadic feature which will draw attention to ridiculous, excessive, or unnecessary regulations in Canadian jurisdictions.

Our first installment relates to one of Canada's most regulated industies: agriculture. What a better name for an act whose sole purpose is the regulation of an entire industry than Nova Scotia's "Dairy Industry Act".

The Act is mainly delegatory, outlining the powers of a Board and a Council which have the regulatory authority to, among other things:

"prescribing...the price or prices or the maximum or minimum prices for fluid milk products..."
"prescribing...the quantities or containers or types of containers in which fluid milk products may be sold..."
"prohibiting the sale of fluid milk products...at a price other than the price prescribed by the Council or at a price higher than the maximum price or lower than the minimum price prescribed by the Council"
"prohibiting...a producer from discontinuing the sale of milk to the Board..."

The rest of the act is hilarious--it's recommended reading if you want to get really riled up about the unnecessary expanse of state authority. Apparently, I was naive to think that Nova Scotian dairy farmers were enlightened or mature enough to be able to sell their wares in a free marketplace (which of course isn't just specific to this province--the whole country's agricultural sector is laden with brutal protectionist subsidisation and regulation).