Taking the Bitter with the Sweet: Sugar Refiners and the Canadian Regulatory State, 1904–20

Abstract

IN OCTOBER 1920 the Board of Commerce tried to prop up rapidly falling sugar prices. This decision appeared as a perversion of the agency's mandate to fight the rising cost of living and engulfed the already unpopular board in a controversy it would not survive. The commerce commissioners chose to protect the wrong industry at the v•mng time: the 'sugar barons' traditionally were suspected of price collusion and other Canadian businesses were struggling to survive the autumn 1920 recession. As one leading Nova Scotia merchant explained: 'The refiners, in common with every other business man and industry, must take the bitter with the sweet. '• Protests against the commerce commission's order besieged the already unpopular Union government. The commerce commission was not the only government agency engulfed in a controversy involving sugar refiners. In 1918 the Board of Railway Commissioners, the agency responsible for railway-freight rate regulation, had been accused by Maritime business interests including sugar refiners of mishandling wartime rate changes. The commission, it was contended, had succumbed to pressures from refineries located in Ontario and Quebec and had allowed rate changes to weaken the competitive position of their Maritime competitors, A