Bruce Muirhead is a professor in the department of History and associate vice president, external research, at the University of Waterloo. His research has generally focused on the development of trade and finance relations in the North Atlantic world, and he has also written on the history of Canadian politics, diplomacy and international development in the Second World War era.
Presently, he is working on a history of dairy supply management in Canada, largely in the context of international trade negotiations, ending with the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement with the European Union (EU), and the Trans Pacific Partnership with 12 other countries. As well, for comparative purposes he is examining the history of the evolution of dairy regimes in Australia, Europe, New Zealand and the United States. Muirhead begins with the premise that supply management is an excellent way of organizing dairy production for Canada.
He is also examining the financialization of land in Western Canada via a project funded by the Norwegian Research Council. It also includes co-investigators from Australia, Norway and the United States. The Canadian study uses Saskatchewan as the model where private equity firms are purchasing large swaths of land as an investment. How is this affecting agriculture in the province, as well as social and cultural relations among its people?