The Conservative leader spoke about pending tax changes and NAFTA
By Diego Flammini
News Reporter
Farms.com
Andrew Scheer, leader of the federal Conservatives, met with Hamilton, Ont.-area farmers on Thursday to discuss the Liberal’s pending tax plans and the ongoing NAFTA discussions.
Scheer visited Beverly Greenhouses, a 29-acre cucumber operation in Flamborough, Ont., to hear first-hand what farmers thought of the Government’s current tax agenda.
“(Farmers) felt that the government was going to make it harder for them to do business without any real explanation why,” he said on Friday, according to the Flamborough Review. “We wanted to come and highlight that it’s people who create jobs in our communities, people who have a third-generation family farm, who grow the food that ends up in our grocery stores.”
The Liberal tax plan included a test to decide if income splitting is reasonable and a provision which would have made selling a family farm to a corporation easier than passing it to the next generation.
The Government has since backed off on some of those plans, but only because of public outcry, Scheer said.
“It’s not that we convinced (the government) that what they were doing was wrong – it’s just that the opposition was so fierce,” he told the Flamborough Review.
Scheer also discussed matters outside of Canadian borders.
Ken Forth, labour chair for the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association, spoke with Scheer about trade and the need for open borders, according to the Flamborough Review.
“Right now we have free trade among Canada and the United States on fruit and vegetables and we need that to continue,” Forth told the Flamborough newspaper. “(We) need that open border – if it ever got to a duty situation, it’s all over.”
Top photo: Andrew Scheer/Chris Roussakis