“Canada possesses significant agricultural potential, but legacy structures, regulatory fragmentation, aging infrastructure and heightened geopolitical trade risks are constraining the sector’s growth and competitiveness,” the report says.

“Rebuilding confidence among producers, investors and trading partners will require a clear, long-term vision for Canada’s agri-food system.”

The Canada West Foundation, a west-focused think tank, released Building Future Success: Growing Canada’s agricultural sector on February 19. It summarizes discussions from a roundtable of agriculture, business and government experts convened in late 2025.

It argues that the progress of Canadian agri-food as a priority depends on action across four interconnected themes:

• On-farm investment
• Market and product diversification
• Infrastructure
• Technology and innovation

On-farm investment

The report argues that Canada needs more small-scale investment opportunities, as most current infrastructure focuses on larger-scale projects. It also needs infrastructure upgrades to help mitigate the risks of climate change.

The report authors also note the opportunities with a new generation of producers.

“A generational shift is reinforcing this opportunity,” the report reads. “Younger producers are more open to partnerships, cooperative models and public-private collaboration.”

Agriculture could take lessons from early stages in energy project development, “particularly in co-investment models that enable shared infrastructure and de-risk private capital,” the report adds.

Market and product diversification

On market and product diversification, the report focuses on potential for new opportunities for Canadian commodities.

The roundtable identifies value-added processing as an area for potential development. They also emphasize the need for market intelligence to identify emerging opportunities for Canadian goods, both raw and processed.

Infrastructure

Roundtable participants raise concerns that Canada’s reputation as a trading partner suffering as a result of infrastructure decisions.

More representation from the sector could help address this problem.

“Moving forward, port governance and decision making should include engagement with representatives from the agriculture sector to ensure sectoral needs are considered as trade patterns and partners evolve,” the report says.

Technology and innovation

The report’s discussion on technology and innovation makes the case for increased research and development and for investments to focus on the sector as a whole.

Sector leaders raise concerns about the disconnect between research priorities and on-farm needs.

“Investments in the Canadian agricultural sector have generally been quite targeted and have not been focused on benefiting the sector as a whole,” the report says. “On the other hand, some other countries employ a more holistic, industry-wide approach.”

Industry protection starts with policy

The report makes a case for prioritizing agriculture in an era when trust in Canada’s two largest trading partners is decreasing.

Protecting the industry starts with domestic policy that recognizes the importance of the sector and “does not expect one industry to bear the brunt of geopolitical retaliation,” it says.

The report points to recent trade tensions with China, which saw canola tariffed in apparent response to Canada’s restrictions on Chinese electric vehicles. Some within the sector saw this as canola being used as collateral in a larger trade dispute.

“Regulatory frameworks that reflect this prioritization and are built in consultation with sector stakeholders could also help address some of the challenges the government has faced when weighing the economic, environmental and social impacts along with the benefits of the sector.”

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• The budget includes about $1 trillion in investment and posts a deficit over $78 billion.
• The government set a goal of doubling non-U.S. exports over 10 years.
• The federal government proposes to increase the AgriStability compensation rate to 90 per cent from 80 per cent and the payment cap per farm to $6 million from $3 million.
• The Advance Payments Program for canola will see $97.5 million spent over two years to increase the interest-free limit on advances to $500,000 for the 2025 and 2026 program years.
• Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada will wind down, streamline or realign some of its research to better fit government priorities. Agricultural Climate Solution Living Labs will be phased out.

The 2025 federal budget puts a hefty focus on trade diversification along with pledged investments into biofuel production and increased business risk management supports.

The “Canada Strong” budget is touted as a “plan to transform our economy from one that is reliant on a single trade partner, to one that is stronger, more self-sufficient, and more resilient to global shocks” in a federal news release.

It boasts some $1 trillion of investments. It also posts a $78.3 billion deficit.

Investments in transport and trade diversification

The Carney government pledged several efforts to guide Canadian exports, including agri-food, away from overreliance on the American market.

“Canada’s trade remains heavily concentrated with a single partner: the United States,” the budget document says. “At the same time, Canada has significant untapped potential to diversify its trade.”

The budget sets a goal to double non-U.S. exports over 10 years. It says this will generate $300 billion more in trade.

This goal includes a new strategic exports office at Global Affairs Canada, which aims to pave the way for Canadian companies and international business opportunities.

The Asia-Pacific region will be an area of particular focus for Canadian exports going forward, which the budget identifies as a “critical market for Canadian agriculture.”

The government pledged $5 billion over seven years toward a trade diversification corridors fund through Transport Canada, beginning in 2025-26.

It also promised an additional $68.5 million over four years to enhance CanExport, which encourages small and medium-sized businesses to find markets abroad by sharing the costs of international business development activities like legal expenses and market research.

Aside from Asia, the budget also promises new trade efforts in the European market, including $8 million over four years to Global Affairs Canada to deepen trade relationships with European partners, beginning in 2026-27. This same period will also see $20 million to enhance the agency’s capacity to negotiate and implement trade investment-related agreements.

Despite challenges from export markets, the budget notes Canada’s domestic-facing sectors have been faring well. It gives credit to Canadians intentionally redirecting spending to domestic industries.

Direct investments in agriculture programs

The budget promises to help Canada’s agriculture sector to “adapt and respond to economic challenges and a shifting trade environment, while positioning them to take advantage of new opportunities.”

One major investment is in the AgriStability program, where the compensation rate will be increased from 80 per cent to 90 per cent and the payment cap per farm raised from $3 million to $6 million. The government will also work to will identify barriers underrepresented groups face in accessing farm financing.

The Advance Payments Program for canola will see $97.5 million spent over two years to increase the interest-free limit on advances to $500,000 for the 2025 and 2026 program years. In September, the federal government announced it would temporarily increase the interest-free portion to $500,000 from $250,000 to help farmers facing market disruptions due to Chinese tariffs on canola.

The AgriMarketing program has $75 million earmarked to enhance diversification and promotion into new markets over five years, starting in 2026-27.

The biofuel sector will be another recipient of government investment. In a move telegraphed earlier this year, $372 million over two years will go to a Biofuels Production Incentive to support domestic biofuels producers beginning in 2026. This repurposes $175.2 million from the Clean Fuels Fund.

The government also said it intends to amend the Clean Fuel Regulations to support the domestic biofuels industry.

Changes within government bodies

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) are set to see changes and streamlining.

AAFC will reorient programming, research and expenditures to better align with the government’s overall priorities. This will include phasing out programs outside the core mandate like the Agricultural Climate Solution Living Labs and reducing scientific activities where a “more streamlined approach can be taken.”

The budget proposes several measures withing CFIA to support increased food exports, including modernized trade tools to simplify processes and reduce the risk of errors and product safety concerns overseas.

CFIA will also receive $32.8 million over four years, beginning in 2026-27, to “secure, expand and restore market access for Canadian agriculture and agri-food, fish and seafood sectors,” including looking to other countries for new trade agreements and better market access.

Other investments and projects

The budget included several other projects and legislative changes which could support the agriculture sector. They include:

• An amendment to the Farm Credit Canada act which would require regular legislative reviews to ensure alignment with the needs of the agriculture and agri-food sector.
• “Winding down mechanisms to return direct fuel charge proceeds to Canadians, small- and medium-sized businesses, farmers, and Indigenous governments,” following the cancellation of consumer carbon pricing.
• Nation-building projects to expand trade corridors, including upgrades the Port of Churchill.
• Consideration to invest in projects like ports in Quebec, rail lines in Alberta and rail infrastructure on the West Coast.
• A proposed extension of the 2005 agricultural cooperative tax rules to apply in respect of eligible shares issued before the end of 2030.
• The Contrecoeur Terminal Container Project, which will expand the Port of Montreal’s capacity by approximately 60 per cent to boost Eastern Canada’s trading infrastructure, to be completed in the first round of major nation-building projects.

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They discussed their recent policy papers on what Canadian agriculture needs for economic stability and productivity in a recent webinar.

Courtney Anderson, Dislène Sossou and Andu Berha highlighted the financial benefits and challenges of adopting soil conservation practices, the impact of climate change on agricultural production and how federal and provincial farm insurance programs are — or are not — mitigating these effects.

Impact of land values

Anderson took a high-level look at the economics of farmland use — including returns from farmland compared to land purchase and rental costs — and what rising farmland values means for the longevity of the sector.

Overall, Anderson reaffirmed that Canada’s farmland is currently in “long-term decline” from development and other pressures, that farmland rental rates have caught up to farmland value appreciation in most areas of the country, and the appreciation of the value of most farmland alone “does not provide a high-enough all-in discount rate of return for most investors.”

Farmland rentals, says Anderson, offer a strong potential additional return on investment to those owning farmland, but come at considerable risk and uncertainty for the renter. Speaking during the CAPI event, he says statistical data indicates rental costs siphon some 90 per cent of operator income, leaving only 10 per cent to cover all other production expenses. This, he says, indicates strong competition in farmland rental markets.

Given the competition for farmland, Anderson argues a better understanding of what future generations will require to invest in farming — whether through renting, purchasing or other methods of farm investment — is needed. He also points to policies from different regions across the country, which have restricted land ownership, as possible models by which farmland can be conserved in other areas.

What drives adoption of new practices

Sossou’s research focused on what drives the adoption of more environmentally minded production practices in vegetable systems, something she says is ever more important as consumer demand for domestically grown produce spurs growth in the vegetable sector.

Because vegetable production often necessitates the intensive use of inputs, tillage and other elements of production mechanization, says Sossou, soil health degradation is a growing concern. The adoption of soil conservation practices helps remediate these issues, while often reducing production costs for the farmer.

However, many vegetable farmers are still reluctant to adopt soil conservation practices due to financial constraints, implementation challenges, access to information, market access, non-targeted support and general negative perceptions of some practices.

These perceptions are not necessarily unwarranted, given that economic and environmental goals don’t always align on the farm. Sossou details how “there is a potential tension between economic sustainability (via succession planning) and environmental sustainability (via Environmental Farm Plans),” adding policymakers or advisors “need to balance both objectives when designing conservation programs.”

Policies promoting the adoption of soil conservation practices should also account for farmer crop specialization, including recognition of the soil nutrient requirements for the vegetable in question.

Additional recommendations to increase the adoption of effective soil conservation practices include expanding technical assistance and market access for vegetables demanding particularly high levels of soil nutrients, enhancing supply chain integration and connecting farmers with wholesalers or processors preferring vegetables grown with soil conservation practices, designing irrigation and incentives policies for a balanced land-use strategy and implementing policies to sustain an effective workforce for labour-intensive crops.

Different farms, different insurance programs

Berha’s work highlights how a one-size-fits-all approach to production insurance programs is increasingly costly, as well as ineffective at promoting change on the farm.

When the climate is good — that is, when poor and extreme weather has not been the norm — Berha says farmers tend to specialize in a few high-performance crops in pursuit of high returns. This occurs at the expense of greater crop diversity, which, while often being less profitable overall, helps protect farmers in the face of an unfavourable climate. Diversification only happens after the onset of poor conditions.

There is thus “a clear trade-off” between sustainability and productivity, says Berha. The imbalance in that trade-off is costing farmers and insurers a lot of money, with Canadian farm insurance payouts jumping from $1.9 billion in 2018 to nearly $5.7 billion five years later — a cost surge that has occurred alongside more extreme weather.

A means of reducing insurance costs involved is complementing current business risk management programs with “resilience built in.” This would include promoting climate-resilient crop choices and farming practices, as well as addressing different risks faced by farmers in different regions.

Berha identifies four additional means of improving insurance programing. This includes a guarantee of prompt payouts to meet cash flow needs, scaled coverage to better match losses — special mention is also given to the upward adjustment of coverage caps and top-ups to reflect greater risk during more extreme weather — simplified paperwork processes, and greater transparency through the publishing of an annual business risk management performance dashboard, which includes reporting payout times, approval rates and regional uptake.

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Dickinson, founder and general partner of District Ventures Capital and mainstay on CBC ‘s Dragon’s Den, said the time is now for Canada to make agriculture and agri-food a critical sector.

She recently took a public-facing approach to Canadian agri-food and trade, including a self-funded trade mission to Asia, an op-ed on food security in the Globe and Mail and an appearance at the Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute’s (CAPI) conference this week in Ottawa.

“Nothing but opportunity”

Dickinson’s interest in Canadian agri-food isn’t sudden; in fact, she’s been actively trying to advance the sector for years.

“I’ve been investing in the agri-food space for a decade,” Dickinson said, pointing to her business District Ventures Capital, which has invested close to $170 million in this space.

“I also started Canada’s first not for profit accelerator, run by an entrepreneur, to help businesses in early stages of starting up a food, beverage, health and wellness, (consumer packaged goods) business.”

What she’s observed over the course of time, she said, is the impact of external challenges, including those experienced through COVID, and “the lack of attention and prioritization that we have on farms and agri-food in Canada.”

With recent tariffs from the United States having an impact on producers, Dickinson said it’s become apparent to her Canada must look to other markets to allow production to scale.

“I’ve realized that there’s a big gap between funding innovation, market, knowledge of who we are, and opportunity being realized and capitalized on in the country.”

She pointed to a Farm Credit Canada (FCC) study which concluded Canada has the opportunity to diversify $12 billion worth of food and beverage exports to new markets.

“This is a gigantic economic opportunity for our nation, and we are looking at it for the first time because we have been complacent about sending our exports to the United States and taking that as a ready market. And now we do have to think about exporting it around the globe.”

She said her trip to Asia, which she undertook to understand export opportunities, opened her eyes to the reality of consumers in other markets looking for safe food from a trustworthy source.

“I look at it as an entrepreneur and see nothing but opportunity. And when there’s opportunity, you want to figure out how to pursue it.”

Dickinson suggested the need for a national agri-food brand to fill that demand.

In a panel discussion at the CAPI conference, she said she experienced lacking Canadian food presence ahead of a meeting on her trade trip.

“One of the things you want to do when you’re Asia is you want to take a gift,” she said. “Now, I didn’t think about that before I left. So, I went, I’m in Thailand, I’m in Bangkok. I’m going to go buy a Canadian gift of some sort, right? You want to represent the country. Do you think I could find anything? I could not find a thing in Thailand.”

Collective voice

To further this goal, she said groups and producers must present a unified voice for the sector.

“There’s a lot of lobbying and effort that goes on for individual groups,” she said. “There needs to be a collective voice in this space, and they need to come together more effectively in order to be heard.”

As for her own pitch for the sector, Dickinson didn’t propose any radical changes. Rather, she said Canada must act on the recommendations that already exist.

“There has been a lot of work done, whether it’s through groups coming together at roundtables, whether it’s through consultation with the industry, whether it’s through hiring consultants who come in and help us understand it,” she said.

“Over decades, the same, exact list of things that have to be done for the sector to be able to grow are brought forward, and nothing’s been acted on.”

“My pitch is, if we don’t do that, the risk to Canadians is huge, the risk to us, to our health, to our prosperity, to our ability to innovate and grow our economy significantly, are off the table if we lose our food.”

This includes increased investments and making agriculture and agri-food a critical sector.

“My pitch would be this is absolutely a marketplace and an industry and a sector that needs full attention and can provide gigantic return profiles to our country, not just financially, but from a social perspective as well.

“So, it really hits all the buttons. Why wouldn’t you invest in it?”

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Amid all that, in July, came a smug, unhelpful letter to the Canadian embassy from six Republican members of the House of Representatives from Wisconsin and Minnesota — alleging Canada’s current wildfire season was the result of “a lack of active forest management” and arson. They went on to assure Canadians, “With all the technology that we have at our disposal, both in preventing and fighting wildfires, this worrisome trend can be reversed if proper action is taken” — whatever that meant.

Worse yet, as smoke billowed right across Canada, the six congresspeople hastened to add that “our constituents have been limited in their ability to go outside and safely breathe due to the dangerous air quality the wildfire smoke has created. In our neck of the woods, summer months are the best time of the year to spend time outdoors recreating, enjoying time with family, and creating new memories, but this wildfire smoke makes it difficult to do all those things.”

Between its lines, the letter was U.S. exceptionalism at its worst — insinuating not just that changes in world weather patterns somehow had nothing to do with this year’s disastrous conditions here and elsewhere, but that thick wildfire smoke sailed clearly, harmlessly, over the heads of all Canadians. And sure, let’s top that off with their suggestion we’re being awfully inconsiderate of Americans’ holiday plans and have nothing better to do with our own summers than watch our friends’ and neighbours’ homes burn.

Oddly, after I just went on for 250 words about it, my point today wasn’t to rant, again, about U.S. elected officials’ failure to read the room. Rather, it’s about exceptionalism — and I wanted to draw on an outside example to show how many Canadians sound when they talk about separatism.

Nations splitting from others by various forces and means, for good or ill, is nothing new in history. At the municipal level, there may be nothing wrong with jurisdictions seeking autonomy when residents collectively feel they’re not getting value for their tax dollars. Here in Winnipeg alone, I can think of one such campaign in which a community succeeded in seceding from the city; another similar campaign, not so much.

And if getting value for money was all that western separatism ever purported to be about, I might even be fine with that — assuming that the parties to the treaties covering the land base in question were somehow also fine with it.

The problem, though, lies in the suggestion put forward by many avowed separatists: that the people of Alberta or Saskatchewan or the Prairies or the broader West are rooted in culture and values that the rest of Canada doesn’t share and/or refuses to understand.

Now, to be sure, some cultural markers have evolved within those arbitrary provincial lines. (Darn right it’s a bunnyhug, not a hoodie.)

To imply, though, that Canadians elsewhere don’t share the western work ethic — that they would do nothing, given control of vast swaths of cropland, pastureland, fossil fuel deposits or whatever forest is still left — comes off as arrogant at best. Especially considering the number of Canadians from elsewhere who come west to do work westerners can’t be found to do.

Or to imply, for that matter, that other Canadians don’t value their families’ well-being. Or don’t value entrepreneurship. Or don’t want their offspring to succeed. Many of these ostensibly western traits read as vague as a fortune cookie.

Beyond those insinuations, a lot of the catchphrases of today’s western separatism read, to me, like U.S. Republican talking points on a handful of unrelated political wedge issues. That in turn suggests these movements, like those we saw in the early 1980s, will maintain momentum only until some small-c conservative party regains the House of Commons.

That, unfortunately for all of us, would prove the current noise is not really about resolving any problems unique to the geography, economy or other features of Canada’s West. Rather, this chatter will, until then, serve only to further reinforce an unhealthy, unproductive feedback loop of western alienation for cynical reasons.

If the social or societal costs of politicians’ continued obsession with separatism don’t bother you as Prairie grain growers, consider these costs instead.

Without the federal level of support, someone (a lot fewer someones, I mean) will be on the hook for 36 per cent of your crop insurance premiums, along with 60 per cent of AgriInsurance administrative costs and part of the cost of reinsurance.

That same smaller share of Canada’s population would also be called on to underwrite 60 per cent of any AgriRecovery program, the interest on the interest-free portion of your advance payments, matching funds for your AgriInvest contributions, and a cost share of whatever the independent West does to replace AgriStability, which nobody out here ever seems to like anyway.

That said, farm business risk management shouldn’t be a problem for long. After all, our friends in the U.S. Congress have assured us that with all that technology they have at their disposal they can make a Prairie natural disaster go away.

The post Editor’s Rant: Canada’s fortune cookie appeared first on Grainews.

Much to the outrage of Canada’s export-minded farm groups, Bill C-202, a private member’s bill sponsored by Bloc Quebecois leader Yves-Francois Blanchet, was last month unceremoniously rammed through both the House of Commons and Senate and, last time I looked, now awaits royal assent. (Editor’s online note: C-202 received royal assent on June 26.)

C-202 is pretty much a copy-paste of the late Bill C-282, which, like many private members’ bills before it, was left to linger — in this case, at report stage before third reading in the Senate — and then die when Parliament was dissolved ahead of April’s federal election. Like its predecessor, C-202 amends section 10 of the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Act to prohibit the federal trade minister from committing Canada to either increase its tariff rate quota for imports of foreign dairy goods, poultry or eggs or reduce Canada’s tariffs on such imports beyond any existing TRQ. In other words, Canada would be prohibited by law from granting any further concessions on its supply-managed sectors in any ongoing or future trade talks.

From the perspective of the Bloc, it was probably the best of timing. One of the foundational free trade agreements governing Canadian exports has been rendered worthless in recent months by the very politician who scribbled his name in the U.S. president’s blank. Federal officials have no doubt been taking stock of what they could throw under the bus to appease Donald Trump — a guy who has previously and specifically railed against Canada’s supply management system and in recent months has abused his executive privilege to impose and/or threaten new tariffs against goods from Canada and beyond.

From the perspective of everyone else, though, the timing couldn’t have possibly been worse. Canada’s dairy and feather sector organizations have little choice but to be pleased with C-202’s passage, but can’t have been happy about having to continue to publicly justify their system’s existence. Canada’s export-minded ag sector groups, meanwhile, protested the passage of what the Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance describes as a “flawed piece of legislation that sets a troubling precedent, undermining Canada’s longstanding commitment to the rules-based international trading system.”

That said, Canada’s commitment to the rules of international trade is not what’s in doubt here. As I hope I’ve implied in this space before, the problem is that the rules of the international trade game Canada is playing have proven to be only as solid as the other players’ willingness to abide by them.

For Canada to further weaken supply management under sustained international pressure for trade reform is one thing. Doing so at a time when we likely gain nothing in return — or worse, we continue to lose ground under whatever ridiculous pretext our southern neighbour comes up with next — is quite another.

The worst thing about C-202, though, is that it pitted farmer against farmer for political reasons at a time when an unwritten law of Canadian politics remains very much in effect anyway — namely, that being seen to mess with supply management is political suicide for any national party serious about forming a government.

It’s possible that unwritten law may someday change as public opinion continues to morph and evolve — and when or if that day ever comes, we can expect a repeal of the amendments now set out in C-202 to be among the first tests.

Correction

On page 5 in this issue you’ll see a letter to the editor critiquing a recent column by Ross McKenzie on selenium in the water supply. Unrelated to that letter, we happened across a small typo in the article (More on selenium and its agricultural, environmental and human concerns, April 8, pgs. 18-19). It refers to a selenium irrigation water level of 0.05 milligrams per litre, or “0.0005 kilograms” of selenium per cubic metre of water. By our math, 0.05 mg/L actually works out to 0.00005 kg per cubic metre.

Ross’s math in the rest of the article follows from the correct figure, and I’m going in to fix that typo right now in the online version of the article, but as always, we want to clarify these errors wherever we can. And as always, please do drop me a line — or a letter to the editor — with any questions, comments or concerns.

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The caucus meeting identified nine changes to boost the national economy to be advocated to Prime Minister Mark Carney, with some including gaining full access to energy corridors across the nation, repealing Bill C-69, lifting the tanker ban off the B.C. coast, eliminating the oil and gas emissions cap, scrapping net zero regulations, ending the designation of plastics as toxic and returning the oversight of carbon taxes to the provinces.

‘Ottawa should stop interfering’

“We are here today as a united caucus because we have decided enough is enough. Development of provincial resources is a provincial responsibility and that includes the development of our transmission and electricity grids,” said Alberta Premier Danielle Smith at the follow-up press conference.

“Ottawa should stop interfering because we believe Alberta and Saskatchewan have an opportunity to speak with one voice outlining the vision for our country, and we can call for a country that works for all of us.”

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe brought up Bill C-5 as proof of the need to legislate around current cumbersome regulatory processes.

“It’s an admission this hard work does have to happen. We have been supportive in prioritizing projects in the short term, which is really a stop gap to fixing the entirety of the regulatory process that we have in Canada, so that all projects can move forward,” said Moe.

Need for port-to-port corridor

“In Saskatchewan we don’t have one, or two or three projects that are a priority, we have literally in excess of 100 projects.”

The premiers echoed the importance of a port-to-port corridor connecting Western Canada to Hudson Bay for accessing Asian and European markets, which would benefit both provinces by increasing oil prices, freeing up rail capacity and enhancing egress to the U.S. The initiative aims to create long-term wealth for centuries, and strategic advantages for Canada.

“That opportunity has to be for all products,” said Moe.

Improving access with the national corridor would free up rail capacity for agri-food products, including potash, for Alberta and Saskatchewan. Approximately 94 per cent of Canada’s grain exports are transported by rail, with 75 per cent of the fertilizer produced and used in Canada moved by rail.

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The arguments presented to Justices Roberts, Miller and Zarnett in the Ontario Court of Appeals revolved around the legislative intent and constitutionality of false pretenses within Ontario’s Security from Trespass and Protecting Food Safety Act (STPFSA), 2020.

Why it matters: On April 2, 2024, Superior Court Judge Koehnen ruled that specific provisions within the Act violate the right of freedom of expression under the Charter of Rights, declaring them to have no force or effect.

In 2022, Camille Labchuk, executive director of Animal Justice, advocate Jessica Scott-Reid, and Toronto Cow Save organizer Louise Jorgensen challenged the constitutionality of new animal welfare legislation aimed at preventing activist disruptions and protecting farms from trespassing.

Arden Beddoes, a litigator for Scott-Reid and Jorgensen, argued that the Act infringes on freedom of expression under Section 2(b) of the Charter by focusing on the aspect of false pretenses rather than the value of the undercover exposé.

“There is no property right to the truth, the Absolute Truth, from everyone who seeks ingress,” argued Beddoes. “Under state laws enacted in this province, you only vitiate the consent because of this law. It’s not in the Trespass Act.”

Justice Zarnett pushed back, arguing the Trespass Act is procedural, dealing with remedies, not the relationship of trespass, which is established in common law, not the Trespass Act.

“But for the exposés, there would be no (STPFSA) law. That is the case,” volleyed Beddoes.

To which Justice Roberts replied, “But for the trespass, there would be no law,” questioning whether the deceit and the consent are inextricably intertwined to impair the validity of consent.

Justice Zarnett asked if the law’s “new” aspect was making something a trespass or establishing a provincial offence in those circumstances, which would otherwise only be actionable in a civil court.

“This is how you stop investigations, private investigations, investigative journalism, much of which, or a significant portion of which, could require investigatory deception,” Beddoes said, adding investigatory deceptions are protected under Section 2(b).

“They contribute to a marketplace of ideas from which people like Ms. Scott Reid draw, from which researchers may draw, on these important issues about how humans treat animals.”

Robin Basu, counsel to the Attorney General, stated that between 2007 and 2020, only 16 undercover exposés were published. He suggested that the COVID-19 restrictions from 2021 to 2022 limited undercover exposés more than STPFSA’s enforcement from 2020 to May 2024.

“(The Respondents) can’t say there were no undercover investigations when the law was enforced because we don’t know,” argued Basu. “There’s no evidence in the record that there were none. All we know is that the claimants say, we’re aware of no exposés being published.”

He added that evidence shows animal rights groups often defer reporting to authorities to prolong the collection of visceral footage, without producing an exposé.

Frederick Schumann, Animal Justice representative, stated that the journalist and whistleblower exceptions are too narrow.

“The person must be a journalist when they obtain the consent,” said Schumann.

A person working with an animal advocacy organization on an investigative exposé is not a journalist, nor are they considered an employee at the time they use false representation to gain employment, he explained.

“Neither the journalist exception nor the whistleblower exception is of assistance to them,” Schumann argued, even if they provide material to a media organization, law enforcement or regulatory body.

“It’s excluding, fundamentally, the animal advocacy organization from carrying out the exposé because their primary function is not to disseminate information to the public.”

In his rebuttal, Basu suggested, “There is no obstacle to Animal Justice setting up a subsidiary that is dedicated, or the primary function is the dissemination of information to the public.”

STPFSA targets trespass, not speech, said Basu, and Section 2(b) doesn’t mandate that free expression must secure genuine consent to enter a property, nor do civil consequences narrow constitutional protections.

“My friend said, ‘You can’t lie on your resume under this statute.’ You can lie on your resume,” explained Basu. “You just can’t do it, and when that lie successfully dupes somebody, then enter the farm.”

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The 2025 inductees include John Anderson, Dori Gingera-Beauchemin, Gaétan Desroches, Joe Hudson, Dennis Laycraft and Peter Sikkema, according to a June 16 press release.

“As our industry continues to innovate and advance, it’s important to reflect and recognize the lifetime contributions these individuals have made to strengthening the world-class agri-food industry we enjoy in Canada,” said hall of fame chair Phil Boyd.

Why it matters: Every year, the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame recognizes people who have helped Canada’s agriculture sector grow and improve.

This year’s inductees can claim groundbreaking work across primary production, food and value-added retail, involvement in commodity organizations, policy making, research and extension and co-operatives, Boyd said.

John Anderson, a west Vancouver resident nominated by former B.C. judge and provincial cabinet member Wally Oppal, spent five decades building his company, Oppy, into a global fresh produce retail business. Starting in the company’s warehouse, he eventually became chief executive officer and transformed the organization through sustainable agriculture practices and community-focused initiatives, the release said.

Dori Gingera-Beauchemin, who lives in Ile Des Chenes, Man., is best known in Manitoba as the province’s long-serving deputy agriculture minister before retiring in 2023. She has continued her agricultural advocacy in retirement, the June 16 release noted. She was nominated by consulting firm Emerging Ag Inc. for her work in sustainable development and policy creation that supported Canadian farm communities.

Quebec’s Gaétan Desroches led Sollio Cooperative Group, Canada’s largest agricultural co-operative, for more than four decades. The Morin-Heights resident, nominated by Sollio Cooperative Group, guided the organization through mergers and helped modernize their operational model.

Joe Hudson, who lived in Brockville, Ont., founded and led Burnbrae Farms, now Canada’s largest family-owned integrated egg producer, for nearly 60 years. Egg Farmers of Canada nominated Hudson

Dennis Laycraft, a Calgary resident nominated by the Canadian Cattle Association, has spent 40 years championing Canada’s beef industry. His leadership has focused on market development, trade competitiveness and building export capacity for Canadian beef, the release said.

Peter Sikkema from Ridgetown, Ont., spent his career as a weed scientist at the University of Guelph Ridgetown Campus. Nominated by Grain Farmers of Ontario, he gained international recognition for his research on herbicide-resistant weeds and practical weed management programs.

The induction ceremony will take place Saturday, Nov. 8, in Victoria, B.C.

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The federal Liberals managed to pull out of a graveyard spiral they’d been in since around mid-2023 — first, by setting a timeline to shed a then-unpopular leader, who then was free to take the point position on Canada’s response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s initial round of “51st state” rhetoric; and second, by naming a new leader who immediately reversed some of his predecessor’s most-loathed policy decisions and called an election to capitalize on that sudden support. The result: both the Liberals and Conservatives booked gains in their seat counts in the Commons, largely on the collapse of support for the federal New Democrats — but the Liberals held onto minority government status.

Far be it from me to presume how any Prairie farmer votes in any election, but judging by the outcomes in relevant ridings, it seems more than safe to say many of you leaned Conservative this time around. So, while Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives did boost their count to 144 seats in the Commons with a 41.3 per cent share of the popular vote, the party’s result can only be described as disappointing — that is, given where it sat in polling around the time of Justin Trudeau’s resignation. At the Conservatives’ polling peak in mid-January, poll aggregator 338canada.com suggested the party stood to win a solid majority with 238 seats or more, with the Liberals finishing third just behind the Bloc Quebecois.

Look, I took just one PoliSci class in university and was mediocre there, but it’s clear to any objective observer that the Conservatives’ collapse on April 28 was more than just a matter of pre-election support gone soft. Not only did the Liberals successfully portray Mark Carney as the functioning adult Canada needed in the room against Trump; they were able to pounce on Poilievre’s Trump-Lite statements and positions from long before the president’s ramblings about Canada turned off all but his most blinkered fans north of the border.

In Poilievre’s defence, I’ll say it was not unwise of him to tack further right for at least a little while before the election was called. Keeping that fringe flank covered may well have been necessary to keep Maxime Bernier’s People’s Party of Canada (PPC) from siphoning off the Conservatives’ most extreme ranks. It’s not that the PPC stood any chance of winning even a single seat, finishing on April 28 with 0.7 per cent of the popular vote. Left unchecked, though, the PPC could well have drawn enough votes in swing ridings to keep a Conservative candidate from winning — and as we saw in some whisker-thin recounts following the election, that number didn’t need to be significant at all. Besides, the 2024 U.S. election had shown there was some appetite here in North America for Republican-style buzzwords and catchphrases, so what was there to lose?

Plenty, it turned out, if you don’t pivot at the right time. The “mushy middle” of Canada’s electorate was clearly sick of Justin Trudeau and thus had been prepared — during polling in 2023-24, at least — to overlook the most Trump-y of Poilievre’s statements and policies. But it was — in hindsight, of course — a bad idea to borrow that heavily from the playbook of a volatile, unpredictable public figure and hope that figure remained a stable and consistent friend to Canada through a Canadian election cycle.

Besides, railing against the “woke” was never going to help Poilievre gain the trust of anyone in Canada who understood what that word meant before the U.S. Republican pundit class got hold of it. And shunning the media and unscripted public may have worked for Stephen Harper up until 2015, but as 2025 rolled on, avoiding professional journalists was never going to convince anyone that Poilievre was the best guy to stand up to Trump.

Poilievre’s loss in his Ottawa-area riding was also mainly of his own making. Promising cuts to the federal civil service was never going to be a vote-getter in the nation’s capital. Nor, in the first federal election since the month-long so-called “Freedom Convoy” hit that city in 2022, did it help that Poilievre had been seen to publicly support it. It sure didn’t help him that the Liberal contender, Bruce Fanjoy, was an aggressive campaigner in the face of an entrenched incumbent who’d held the riding since 2004. Luck was also on Fanjoy’s side this time, but may I just say any worthwhile political party anywhere needs to find and develop more candidates like that guy.

With the election over, though, what’s a Conservative-minded farmer to do? Lobby for provincial or regional separatism? Parrot ridiculous and baseless allegations of election fraud? If the idea of Canada means anything to you, I wouldn’t recommend either of those options.

While it may seem dismissive of me to counsel patience against frustration in this day and age, it will be the healthier option for us all in the long run. Carney’s new government remains in a vulnerable minority position. Poilievre, if he’s able to secure a seat in the Commons, will hopefully have learned valuable lessons about leading a national government-in-waiting. If he hasn’t, you may want to suggest to your Conservative MP that it’s time for the party to look elsewhere.

Clarifications

In the article “New risks flagged in this year’s ‘Keep it Clean’ list” (May 6, page 13) we mentioned the latest loosening of restrictions on lambda-cy insecticide, saying “The insecticide had been removed from the label several years ago.” Clearly I let a phrase drop from that sentence and meant for it to say that lambda-cy’s use on feed crops had been pulled from the label.

Also, in the article “All quiet on the machinery front” (May 6, page 21), we said that on April 10, Agco announced it was suspending shipments of machines to the U.S. from overseas plants. That announcement in fact came April 8, followed two days later by an announcement that the company was “resuming shipment of certain products into the U.S. from most global locations.” As always, we regret these errors, and as always, contact me with any questions or concerns.

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