There’s a lot of discussion around the issue of climate change in the federal election campaign.
The NDP’s Agriculture Critic Alistair MacGregor says if we’re tying agriculture and climate change together we need to recognize the amazing work that farmers do such as carbon sequestration.
“One of the greatest tools in the tool box in fighting cimate change is going to be agriculture. A realization that our soil has massive quantities of carbon that can be stored in it, and I think our federal government has to be responsive to that reality, but also bring about programs that encourage more of those beneficial agricultural practices.”
He notes on the issue of farm labour the government needs to look at how we provide a pathway to citizenship for those people that are coming back repeatedly as Temporary Foreign Workers.
“In many cases farmers have decade’s long relationships with the same worker. I think those workers in order to become a fully functioning member of those rural communities; we have to give them a pathway to actually becoming permanent residents and then citizens.”
He notes the red tape around these programs can be onerous adding that maybe we could set up a pilot program that identifies a really good, solid work environment and labels those farms as a “trusted employer” which could then ease the process for them.
MacGregor says when it comes to the challenges around international trade, We have to find some kind of system where country’s can settle these disputes especially on phytosanitary issues.
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