SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 102 - Sep/26/22

Sep/26/22 2:59:09 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, farmers in Prince Edward Island have been sending me photos of collapsed buildings, livestock without shelter and acres of crops under water. P.E.I. farmers are still reeling from the Liberals' self-imposed export ban on potatoes from last year and now, with harvest set to begin this week, another potato crop is in jeopardy. Their financial and mental health is deteriorating and many of them have said that if they do not receive support, they are done. What concrete steps is the agriculture minister taking to help Atlantic Canadian and Quebec farmers who have been impacted by the hurricane?

103 words

Context: House Hansard - 102 - Sep/26/22

Mr. John Barlow (Foothills, CPC)

Sep/26/22 3:00:19 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, conversations are not enough, and they cannot be the fallback position of agristability and advance payment programs, because we know that the impact of this hurricane has been profound. Farmers in Annapolis Valley have significant losses in the apple orchards. They cannot meet the threshold of many of these programs. Even if they did meet the threshold, they do not get payments for months and years down the road, and that is much too late. Farmers in Atlantic Canada and Quebec need support now. Again, what concrete and specific steps is the agriculture minister taking to ensure that those farm families get their crop off and survive this disaster?

111 words

Context: House Hansard - 102 - Sep/26/22

Mr. Kody Blois (Kings—Hants, Lib.)

Sep/26/22 7:51:05 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I share my hon. colleague's sentiment about the way in which we work together in Atlantic Canada. Our communities step up for one another. The member spoke about the importance of making sure that brush piles and debris-cleaning efforts are undertaken right away. I was certainly relieved to see that there were Canadian Armed Forces members on the ground in Nova Scotia, working with local authorities. My question is around agriculture. In Kings—Hants, we are what I would call the breadbasket or the agriculture heartland of Atlantic Canada, but I will certainly share and recognize that Cumberland—Colchester has an important agricultural community as well. One of the things we worked hard on over the weekend as members of Parliament was to share about the impacts with the Prime Minister, the Minister of Emergency Preparedness and the group that is working on the ground. Would the hon. member share with the House the impacts on the agriculture sector in Cumberland—Colchester, such that we can make sure that we have a really important response in the days ahead?

186 words

Context: House Hansard - 102 - Sep/26/22

Mr. Kody Blois

Sep/26/22 8:37:53 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague knows that normally I would love to engage with him in French, but at this hour of the night and on this subject, with a lot to handle, I am going to just answer in English. We are still assessing the damage in Atlantic Canada. In Prince Edward Island in particular, the corn crop has been extremely impacted. A number of supply-managed barns, dairy and poultry, had major structural damage, so these are programs that we have to be able to put in place. I mentioned a disaster finance arrangements program. That is an extraordinary program that can be established for a whole host of industries, including agriculture. My hon. colleague would know about AgriRecovery and about different programs that are cost-shared between the province and the Government of Canada as it relates to agriculture specifically. However, we do have mechanisms on extraordinary costs above and beyond that and this might be a time when we have to evaluate whether that is indeed the case, so we can get that support right away. Again, I want to manage expectations. When we talk about the rebuilding of barns, we have a labour shortage right now in this country and we have to be mindful that it is not going to be easy, particularly in rural communities, to have the capacity to build this overnight, but we will get to work right away.

238 words