The Canadian Federation of Agriculture (CFA) held its annual lobby day in Ottawa on Oct. 22., 2024.
CFA President Keith Currie was pleased with the result.
"We obtained just over 40 meetings with elected Senate office staff, ministerial staff. It was, we felt, a very successful lobby day and then we copped it off at the end of the day with a reception. We had nearly 250 people attending, elected, and people from the Senate and industry stakeholders. All in all a very good day."
Federal Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay also provided remarks.
Among the topics discussed throughout the day was the Advance Payments Program (APP).
"We are continuing to ask for that threshold to be raised to $350,000 of interest-free loans, something that's been a long-standing ask," noted Currie.
Another issue was the Accelerated Capital Cost Allowance.
"Times where farmers happen to have a good year being allowed to make purchases and write them off in year one is very important from a cash flow aspect so that we can make sure that we reinvest that money into more capital purchases to further advance our needs on the farm," stated Currie.
He said labour is another topic that is always talked about.
"Continuing to ask for the federal government to make sure that we don't disrupt the Temporary Foreign Worker Program and more specifically the Seasonal Ag Worker Program that we have in agriculture is working well and to this point, they're basically leaving that alone for agriculture so we're appreciative of that."
Other topics brought up included extended interswitching, a national data strategy for agriculture, and modernizing the Canada Grain Act.
Currie said that Hill Day helps to make everyone in Ottawa aware about the needs of agriculture so that when they're debating bills in the Houses they understand the background behind them.
Source : Pembinavalley online