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As always when the subject is free trade, the debate is between rival camps of protectionists.

Barely had he announced the signing of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership, widely referred to as a “free trade agreement,” before Stephen Harper was boasting of his success in keeping trade unfree.

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In the dairy industry, he bragged, Canada had conceded a mere 3.25 per cent of its market to the bloody foreign — er, to our valued trading partners, to be phased in over five years. Yet such was his concern for the interests of the dairy industry, so rudely deprived of one day’s sales out of 30 — at twice market prices — that the Conservative leader immediately promised them $4.3 billion in compensation.

Compensation, you may ask, for what? To qualify for their share of the $2.4 billion in income guarantees, dairy farmers will not be required to show any financial loss. Which is just as well, because they aren’t suffering any financial loss: They get another $1.5 billion to keep them whole on the value of their quotas.