Ontario's premier affirms support for supply management

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

by SUSAN MANN

The heavy criticism being leveled against supply management by urban media outlets and others hasn’t shaken Premier and Agriculture Minister Kathleen Wynne’s solid support for the system.

“I have a lot of respect for the farmers who have built up the supply management system,” she said during a telephone interview with Better Farming Tuesday afternoon. “It is a very stable mechanism for agriculture and the supply managed sectors. I am and will continue to be a big supporter of supply management.”

Wynne was asked to comment on a number of matters in addition to her support for supply management, including the farm business registration review, AgriRecovery for flooded farmers in the Bradford Marsh and Chatham Kent areas, and criticisms that she doesn’t have enough time to devote to agriculture because of her other jobs – premier, intergovernmental affairs minister and MPP for Don Valley West in Toronto.

Recommendations as part of the farm business registration review will be out sometime in November, she says. “Feedback from the stakeholders is going to shape the final recommendations.”

Earlier this year, the province announced it would ask the federal government to launch a formal assessment under the AgriRecovery framework for vegetable farmers who lost crops after the Horlings Dyke in the Bradford Marsh broke twice this spring and flooded their fields. Wynne says the AgriRecovery assessment request does include the Chatham Kent area too. Fields in that area were flooded from excessive rain.  “Production in those areas is very important to us so we want to make sure they get the support they need,” she says.

Wynne says ministry staff and officials with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada are working on the assessment and recommendations but she couldn’t say when an announcement would be made on what help the farmers will get.

In response to criticisms against her for not having the time to devote to the agricultural industry that it needs, Wynne says she took on the job of agriculture minister in addition to being premier because “I believed that it was so important that we raise the profile of agriculture and the agri-food sector in the province.”

Individual farmers, food processors and their organizations that she meets within Ontario are “very supportive of having that kind of profile,” she says. “They’re really keen on having any profile in this provincial government that will help the people of the province to understand that we see agri-food as a real driver of the economy.”

Wynne says naysayers need to look at how important the agricultural industry is to the provincial economy, and adds that when she became premier she said she would also be agriculture minister for one year. “My hope is by the time that year is up I’ll be able to demonstrate some of the changes we’ve made and the directions we’ve put in place that will allow the sector to grow.”

Asked how she juggles her various jobs along with being MPP for Don Valley West, Wynne says she works long days and “I work a lot of days.” She also tries to balance attending agricultural events with going to more general government functions. “I find that I can blend the issues. The fact is agriculture is an important part of what we do as an Ontario government and I don’t find that there’s a conflict there at all.”

As for opposition to the Liberals in rural Ontario because of wind farms, Wynne says she wants people to know her government has changed the process. There needs to be better consultations and work with communities at the start of a turbine project being introduced into an area. “We’re working to fix that now,” she says.

Despite Wynne’s support of supply management, challenges to the system continue. Sean McGivern, president of the Practical Farmers of Ontario, plans to dispute Chicken Farmers of Ontario’s authority by growing 2,000 pasture-raised broiler chickens without quota. Chicken Farmers only allows farmers to raise 300 birds annually without quota.

McGivern says he is acting on his own in this challenge and not as the president of Practical Farmers. He’s written to Chicken Farmers and told them of his plans.

“I don’t believe CFO (Chicken Farmers of Ontario) has the jurisdiction that they think they do and on paper that they say they do,” he says.

Practical Farmers and others have been trying to convince Chicken Farmers of Ontario to increase the number of birds farmers can raise annually without quota to 2,000. Chicken Farmers has refused.

Practical Farmers plans to appeal the limit with the Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Appeal Tribunal.

Michael Edmonds, Chicken Farmers director of communications and government relations, couldn’t be reached for comment. BF