The Farm Products Marketing Agencies Act (FPMAA), passed by Parliament in 1972, was a compromise on the original bill introduced by Bud Olson two years earlier. The nature of the issue at stake nationalmarketing boards with supply management authority; the policy process surrounding the FPMAA; and the interests, resources, goals and tactics of the participants involved all affected the compromise outcome. So, too, did broader ideological, institutional and environmental factors. The FPMAA case indicates that the Canadian Department of Agriculture is less likely to realize its policy goals when those goals require provincial consensus and/or conflict with the aims of regionally organized interests able to secure provincial governments' alliances than in crisis situations when its policy objectives are not opposed by provincial governments, and indeed are sought by Quebec and Ontario and the largest farm organizations.

G. A. Hiscocks

Papers

Supply management -definition, techniques and implications.