Situations like the one Monette Farms is in is why a special committee is necessary, Trent Wotherspoon said
An ag situation playing out publicly in Saskatchewan is one reason a special committee is needed in the province, an NDP MLA said.
During question period on May 6, Trent Wotherspoon, the MLA for Regina Mount Royal and the NDP’s deputy ag shadow minister, asked Agriculture Minister David Marit and the rest of the provincial government to work with the opposition and larger ag community create a committee whose sole focus is ag, and cited Monette Farms as an example of why one is necessary.
Monette Farms filed for creditor protection on April 21 after defaulting on loans and owing more than $900 million to creditors.
This farm “has fallen into financial trouble and is in creditor protection with many impacts on producers and the province,” Wotherspoon said. “Will this government work with us to urgently convene a special committee to focus on agriculture, including the creditor protection of this mega-farm and its impacts, the soaring costs of inputs, and economic fundamentals of farming and farm landownership?”
The committee would function similarly to the ag committee in the House of Commons.
Those meetings rely on expert witnesses and stakeholders to go over specific issues in detail.
The House committee, for example, recently released a report on the planned AAFC cuts following multiple hearings with witnesses and other stakeholders.
The Sask. government didn’t take the NDP up on its request.
Minister Marit empathized with the situation Monette Farms is going through, and highlighted action the government related to farmland ownership.
“Being a farmer all my life and still owning farm land today, nobody wants to see a farmer in financial difficulty,” he told the Saskatchewan legislature. “Obviously everyone has to sign a declaration now in the purchase of farm land. That is why we’ve also engaged with the industry now to do a fulsome review of the farm land security Act.
“That is ongoing now. We’ll probably carry on right through to fall and until early next year. The recommendations that will come forward through all of that consultation will be something that our government will graciously have a very good look at and see if there’s changes that have to be made that can be made.”