Resilient farmers need a responsive government

The experiences of the last year have shown that those in agriculture who grow, process, and manufacture our food are a pretty resilient lot. As their elected representatives, we owe it to them to ensure we have a federal government that is responsive to their needs, now, and is prepared to respond to future shocks to the system.

Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau, pictured on Nov. 7, 2019, on the Hill. Although we hope to soon put the pandemic behind us, we must not forget the problems held over from before COVID-19 struck. In particular, our supply-managed sectors have had shares of their domestic market whittled away by concessions made through successive trade deals: CETA, CPTPP, and now CUSMA, and we must ensure that the government follows through with its promises of fair compensation, writes NDP MP Alistair MacGregor. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade

Opinion

BY NDP MP ALISTAIR MACGREGOR

March 15, 2021

At the start of the pandemic last March, the House Agriculture and Agri-Food Committee had just begun a study, based on a motion I moved during our first couple of meetings, looking into the suite of Business Risk Management Programs (BRMs) offered by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada t...

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