Letters

Need for universal childcare subsidies and a national pharmacare program

Rural women are experiencing disproportionate pandemic-related economic disadvantages due to more precarious employment in jobs with no health benefits. A Universal Pharmacare program and a Universal Childcare Subsidy will have an enormous positive impact, particularly among women, who have been the most hard-hit.

Throne speech should support farmers and ranchers to reduce GHGs

Prime Minister, as you set a new agenda for Canada, we expect that in your Speech from the Throne you will prioritize food and farming and include “Supporting farmers to reduce emissions and build resilience.” Along with helping farm businesses recover from the pandemic, an investment in farmers will help to revitalize rural communities and help them prepare for the clean economy of the 21st century, while also protecting or enhancing biodiversity, water quality, and air quality.

Urgent need for support to increase local and regional abattoir capacity

The increase in demand for locally produced food, particularly meat, in response to COVID has been widely reported all across Canada. This has the makings of an economic success story – a silver lining in the pandemic’s very dark cloud – but serious, targeted investment in to create and expand its infrastructure is needed to allow this emerging source of local prosperity to become well established.

Emergency Processing Fund: NFU Input

We look forward to more details and good news about expanding our local and regional processing capacity to serve Canada livestock producers from coast to coast.

Letter – Time to rebuild our meat processing system

Smaller, safer slaughter plants in each province would disperse threats to food security. If one plant was forced to close it would not disrupt the food chain across the entire country. Providing safe secure food from local farms to local consumers is entirely possible without putting meat packing workers at risk. Bigger is not always better. 

Letter to Ag Minister – NFU request for AgriStablity program changes

COVID-19 is now helping all Canadians to understand the value of a strong family farming sector. We are hopeful that all of government will now take steps to enable Canada’s family farms to thrive and plan for the future.

The Farm Income Crisis and the COVID 19 Crisis

Today, let us make sure that our current farm population has what they need to make it through the COVID 19 crisis and carry on to build an even stronger food system in the years to come

Letter of Support of Farmers’ Markets & Direct Sales of Farmers’ Food across Canada

NFU letter of support for the continuance of farmers’ markets and other direct sales during the COVID-19 crisis. We urge Public Health and municipal officials to work with the markets to develop a way to continue direct sales from farmer to consumer. Public decision-makers must work to support this continuation of sales that invests in the long-term benefit for community health and economic sustainability.

Letter: CGC, mandate to protect farmers’ interests, are essential

Over the past several months, Agriculture Canada and the grain companies, in concert with the current senior staff of the CGC, have been re-writing the Canada Grain Act, mostly behind closed doors . Grain company foxes are advising on how to guard the producers’ hen house.

French politicians should not ratify CETA

We echo our French counterparts’ call on members of the National Assembly and Senate to vote against ratifying CETA because it does not offer safeguards needed to fight the major social problems of the 21st century: climate change and social inequality.