Level of knowledge and perceptions of Canadians on supply management

Abstract Supply management (SM) has recently attracted a lot of attention nationally and internationally. A bill (C‐202) to safeguard SM from future international trade negotiations was voted unanimously by the Canadian parliament in 2025. At the international level, tariffs associated with SM have been criticized by the Trump administration. Given that SM is based on a tacit social contract between SM farmers and society at large, as well as its political significance, it appears important to assess the level of knowledge of Canadians regarding this policy, as well as their perception of SM themes raised in the media. This paper reports the literacy score and perceptions on SM of a national survey of over 1200 respondents. To analyze the data, perceptions on SM themes are regressed on respondents’ level of SM literacy, sociodemographic data, as well as on two questions that are of a more ideological nature. Results indicate that Canadians have little knowledge of the working or scope of SM. Furthermore, after providing neutral information on themes related to SM that are or have been in the media, we find that the views toward SM policy are mostly negative, with the most negative perceptions held by respondents with ideologies that we loosely classify as economic conservatism.