For years, dozens of rebels — as a Quebec judge dubbed them — sold their syrup on the black market in an act of defiance
(and we think pot is going to be different?}
It’s high season for sugaring off in Quebec, with the weather right for maple sap that boils down to good syrup. But Steve Côté’s taps aren’t running, very few of them anyway. This spring will likely be the last at his sugar bush in Saint-Mathias-de-Bonneterre, nestled in the hills near the border with New Hampshire. Soon, he says, he’ll sell the farm with 25,000 tapped sugar maple trees and head some place without Quebec’s rigid regulation on syrup sales.
His father and grandfather started the sugar bush. The farm’s been in his family for 52 years. “You can’t imagine how tough it is,” Côté, a 53-year-old father of four, said.
Côté is a maple syrup rebel at the end of a maple syrup rebellion. He was part of the band of rural Quebec producers who resisted the province’s syrup cartel. The cartel — officially known as la Fédération des producteurs acéricoles — fixes the price of syrup, assigns quotas to producers and controls bulk syrup sales.
For years, dozens of rebels — as a Quebec judge dubbed them — sold their syrup on the black market in an act of defiance. The rebellion played out in a series of dramatic clashes between the federation and the rule-breakers. Producers snuck barrels of syrup out of their sugar shacks in the middle of the night for sale on the black market. The federation posted guards outside problem sugar shacks. Inspectors raided sugar bushes, checked production logs and bank accounts, sniffed out black market sales and seized syrup.
For every pound sold illegally, the federation charged a fine. The rebels racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and started contesting them in court. Now, most have exhausted all legal recourse or signed settlements out of court.
Emilie Lacasse, a security guard assigned to the sugar shack of maple syrup producer Steve Côté, places seals on top of barrels of maple syrup produced at Côté’s sugar shack in Sawyerville, Quebec, on Wednesday, April 8, 2015. Laura Pedersen/National Post file photo
It appears the rebellion is about over. It’s time to pay, but for Steve Côté, the only way to do that is to sell his sugar bush and become an exile in less-regulated Ontario or New Brunswick or the northeastern United States.
The federation isn’t buying it. This week, executive director Simon Trépanier accused the rebels of deliberately dragging out the process, incurring more fines and interest and legal fees, making the amount owed so grotesque that they were looked upon sympathetically by the media. “Those individuals are looking to be the victims,” he said. “They’re still speeding on the highway at 150 km/h.”
“I don’t think I’m playing the victim,” Côté said. “They’re saying we dragged it out before the courts and everything, but I didn’t have the choice. I thought that maybe we would have won something but now we see that we didn’t win anything.”
“Still today, I think it’s just f—ing unbelievable that somebody has a right on my sap that’s coming out of my tree. It’s just crazy. But that’s what the court said.”
Angèle Grenier battled the federation for 15 years and became the rebellion’s unofficial leader. When the federation claimed she owed more than $300,000 for bypassing its controls and selling to buyers in the Maritimes, she went all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada in an attempt to upend the system.
But after the court refused last June to hear her appeal, Grenier had to admit the battle was lost. In October she sold the sugar bush she had bought in 1994. She used the proceeds to pay an out-of-court settlement reached with the federation and fees associated with her legal challenge.
Still today, I think it's just f---ing unbelievable that somebody has a right on my sap that's coming out of my tree. It's just crazy. But that's what the court said
“To them, I was the worst criminal,” she said in an interview this week. “To have peace and quiet, I sold.”
She said she could not bear the thought of turning around and joining the federation’s marketing scheme after all these years.
“It would be against my values, because I think the producers are imprisoned now, and it will only get worse,” she said.
“Right now, (the federation has) a monopoly over everything. They have the courts and the government on their side.”
She knows of other producers in her region of the Beauce, which lies south of Quebec City above the Maine border, who have moved to New Brunswick to escape the restrictions imposed by the Quebec federation. But at 60, she is not ready to start anew.
“It cost me a lot, but I don’t regret it,” she said of her battle. “I brought attention to our problems with syrup production in Quebec.”
To boost maple syrup’s profile nationally and abroad, the federation’s marketing efforts include the creation of a maple mascot, Siropcool – the “smartest superhero in the Galaxy” who looks like a drop of syrup and gets his “lightning-quick reflexes” and “unlimited supply of brilliant ideas” from living among maple trees.
Producers aren’t paid immediately for the syrup they sell through the federation system. And those who produce over their quota must send the surplus barrels of syrup to the federation’s reserve. They’re paid for those barrels whenever they’re sold — which can take years, since the federation only dips into the reserve during years when the industry’s output can’t meet demand.
The federation says the majority of its members are content with the rules, which were set by producers themselves in the early 2000s. A federation poll of member producers found 82 per cent were happy. But two recent reports, one commissioned by the provincial agriculture minister in 2016 and another last month by the Montreal Economic Institute, found the rules were hurting Quebec producers while encouraging their competitors outside the province. (Trépanier, the federation boss, wrote a letter calling the latter report a “slap in the face.”)
The fines charged to the rebels work out to more than a third of the value of syrup believed to have been sold on the black market. Trepanier said the fine is $1.20/pound. The price of syrup is about $2.90/pound, depending on the grade. “When somebody’s telling you that he received a $300,000 fine, it’s because he probably produced three times that amount in syrup value,” Trépanier said. “It’s directly related to the amount of syrup they sold on the black market.” The federation also retroactively charges its per-pound fee on the syrup sold, plus interest.
”
(and we think pot is going to be different?}
It’s high season for sugaring off in Quebec, with the weather right for maple sap that boils down to good syrup. But Steve Côté’s taps aren’t running, very few of them anyway. This spring will likely be the last at his sugar bush in Saint-Mathias-de-Bonneterre, nestled in the hills near the border with New Hampshire. Soon, he says, he’ll sell the farm with 25,000 tapped sugar maple trees and head some place without Quebec’s rigid regulation on syrup sales.
His father and grandfather started the sugar bush. The farm’s been in his family for 52 years. “You can’t imagine how tough it is,” Côté, a 53-year-old father of four, said.
Côté is a maple syrup rebel at the end of a maple syrup rebellion. He was part of the band of rural Quebec producers who resisted the province’s syrup cartel. The cartel — officially known as la Fédération des producteurs acéricoles — fixes the price of syrup, assigns quotas to producers and controls bulk syrup sales.
For years, dozens of rebels — as a Quebec judge dubbed them — sold their syrup on the black market in an act of defiance. The rebellion played out in a series of dramatic clashes between the federation and the rule-breakers. Producers snuck barrels of syrup out of their sugar shacks in the middle of the night for sale on the black market. The federation posted guards outside problem sugar shacks. Inspectors raided sugar bushes, checked production logs and bank accounts, sniffed out black market sales and seized syrup.
For every pound sold illegally, the federation charged a fine. The rebels racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and started contesting them in court. Now, most have exhausted all legal recourse or signed settlements out of court.
Emilie Lacasse, a security guard assigned to the sugar shack of maple syrup producer Steve Côté, places seals on top of barrels of maple syrup produced at Côté’s sugar shack in Sawyerville, Quebec, on Wednesday, April 8, 2015. Laura Pedersen/National Post file photo
It appears the rebellion is about over. It’s time to pay, but for Steve Côté, the only way to do that is to sell his sugar bush and become an exile in less-regulated Ontario or New Brunswick or the northeastern United States.
The federation isn’t buying it. This week, executive director Simon Trépanier accused the rebels of deliberately dragging out the process, incurring more fines and interest and legal fees, making the amount owed so grotesque that they were looked upon sympathetically by the media. “Those individuals are looking to be the victims,” he said. “They’re still speeding on the highway at 150 km/h.”
“I don’t think I’m playing the victim,” Côté said. “They’re saying we dragged it out before the courts and everything, but I didn’t have the choice. I thought that maybe we would have won something but now we see that we didn’t win anything.”
“Still today, I think it’s just f—ing unbelievable that somebody has a right on my sap that’s coming out of my tree. It’s just crazy. But that’s what the court said.”
Angèle Grenier battled the federation for 15 years and became the rebellion’s unofficial leader. When the federation claimed she owed more than $300,000 for bypassing its controls and selling to buyers in the Maritimes, she went all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada in an attempt to upend the system.
But after the court refused last June to hear her appeal, Grenier had to admit the battle was lost. In October she sold the sugar bush she had bought in 1994. She used the proceeds to pay an out-of-court settlement reached with the federation and fees associated with her legal challenge.
Still today, I think it's just f---ing unbelievable that somebody has a right on my sap that's coming out of my tree. It's just crazy. But that's what the court said
“To them, I was the worst criminal,” she said in an interview this week. “To have peace and quiet, I sold.”
She said she could not bear the thought of turning around and joining the federation’s marketing scheme after all these years.
“It would be against my values, because I think the producers are imprisoned now, and it will only get worse,” she said.
“Right now, (the federation has) a monopoly over everything. They have the courts and the government on their side.”
She knows of other producers in her region of the Beauce, which lies south of Quebec City above the Maine border, who have moved to New Brunswick to escape the restrictions imposed by the Quebec federation. But at 60, she is not ready to start anew.
“It cost me a lot, but I don’t regret it,” she said of her battle. “I brought attention to our problems with syrup production in Quebec.”
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- Alleged thief tells Quebec court man threatened to kill him and his family if he didn’t buy stolen maple syrup
To boost maple syrup’s profile nationally and abroad, the federation’s marketing efforts include the creation of a maple mascot, Siropcool – the “smartest superhero in the Galaxy” who looks like a drop of syrup and gets his “lightning-quick reflexes” and “unlimited supply of brilliant ideas” from living among maple trees.
Producers aren’t paid immediately for the syrup they sell through the federation system. And those who produce over their quota must send the surplus barrels of syrup to the federation’s reserve. They’re paid for those barrels whenever they’re sold — which can take years, since the federation only dips into the reserve during years when the industry’s output can’t meet demand.
The federation says the majority of its members are content with the rules, which were set by producers themselves in the early 2000s. A federation poll of member producers found 82 per cent were happy. But two recent reports, one commissioned by the provincial agriculture minister in 2016 and another last month by the Montreal Economic Institute, found the rules were hurting Quebec producers while encouraging their competitors outside the province. (Trépanier, the federation boss, wrote a letter calling the latter report a “slap in the face.”)
The fines charged to the rebels work out to more than a third of the value of syrup believed to have been sold on the black market. Trepanier said the fine is $1.20/pound. The price of syrup is about $2.90/pound, depending on the grade. “When somebody’s telling you that he received a $300,000 fine, it’s because he probably produced three times that amount in syrup value,” Trépanier said. “It’s directly related to the amount of syrup they sold on the black market.” The federation also retroactively charges its per-pound fee on the syrup sold, plus interest.
”
