Calling for support for Quebec producers

Apr 09, 2024

Quebec solidaire wants the Legault government to create an emergency fund

By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com

One of Quebec’s opposition parties is calling on Premier François Legault and his government to set aside funds for farmers during these challenging times.

A spokesperson for Quebec solidaire, which has 12 out of 125 seats in the province’s national assembly, is imploring the government to do more before it’s too late for some farmers.

"We can't wait for the next budget to give agricultural producers some breathing space," Gabirel Nadeau-Dubois, who represents the riding of Gouin, told the Canadian Press. "Of course, there are a lot of things to do, there are a lot of programmes to review, and there are issues that won't be resolved in a few days. But one thing the premier must do quickly is to release an emergency fund to provide immediate financial assistance to farmers who need it because last season was catastrophic, and 2024 is shaping up to be difficult too.”

This recent call for more support came after Quebec farmers staged a protest last week.

More than 300 producers drove their tractors through Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu on Friday to voice the challenges they’re facing.

"We already have people going bankrupt. We already have people shutting down, doing something else. A lot of farmers already have to work almost part-time, if not full-time, outside the farm to be able to make ends meet," Stephanie Levasseur, vice-president of the Union des producteurs agricoles (UPA), Quebec farmers' union, told CTV News.

During the protest, supporters held signs with messages like “put us at the heart of the solution.”

And a sign called on the Legault government to increase the agriculture budget.

The sign, translated from French to English, said agriculture received less than 1 per cent of budget spending when there are 8 million mouths to feed.

Figures from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada paint a bleak picture for Quebec farmers.

The department’s forecasts show net ag income in Quebec will drop from $959 million in 2022 to $487.1 million in 2023 to $66 million in 2024, the UPA says.

Nationally, the Conservative Party of Canada introduced a motion in the House of Commons on April 9 calling on Prime Minister Trudeau to meet with premiers to discuss the carbon tax and its effect on Canadians.

This motion follows requests from multiple premiers including Danielle Smith of Alberta, Doug Ford from Ontario and Scott Moe from Saskatchewan for a similar meeting.

“The carbon tax, on a net basis, will cost Alberta households more than $900 this year if the tax remains implemented,” Premier Smith wrote in her letter.

“This recent 23 per cent increase to the carbon tax has led to a sharp rise in gas prices across Ontario, reaching record-high levels this week,” Premier Ford wrote. “The strain the increased carbon tax costs are putting on Ontario families and businesses cannot be overstated.”

Prime Minister Trudeau has since denied the meeting requests with a spokesperson saying the provinces and territories worked in 2016 on carbon pricing.

This reaction is tone deaf, said Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre.

“Justin Trudeau doesn’t understand that if you tax the farmer who makes the food, and the trucker who ships the food, you end up taxing the family who buys the food,” he said in a statement.

Farms.com spoke with two Ontario farmers after the April 1 carbon tax increase.

Video: Why Your Food Future Could be Trapped in a Seed Morgue

In a world of PowerPoint overload, Rex Bernardo stands out. No bullet points. No charts. No jargon. Just stories and photographs. At this year’s National Association for Plant Breeding conference on the Big Island of Hawaii, he stood before a room of peers — all experts in the science of seeds — and did something radical: he showed them images. He told them stories. And he asked them to remember not what they saw, but how they felt.

Bernardo, recipient of the 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award, has spent his career searching for the genetic treasures tucked inside what plant breeders call exotic germplasm — ancient, often wild genetic lines that hold secrets to resilience, taste, and traits we've forgotten to value.

But Bernardo didn’t always think this way.

“I worked in private industry for nearly a decade,” he recalls. “I remember one breeder saying, ‘We’re making new hybrids, but they’re basically the same genetics.’ That stuck with me. Where is the new diversity going to come from?”

For Bernardo, part of the answer lies in the world’s gene banks — vast vaults of seed samples collected from every corner of the globe. Yet, he says, many of these vaults have quietly become “seed morgues.” “Something goes in, but it never comes out,” he explains. “We need to start treating these collections like living investments, not museums of dead potential.”

That potential — and the barriers to unlocking it — are deeply personal for Bernardo. He’s wrestled with international policies that prevent access to valuable lines (like North Korean corn) and with the slow, painstaking science of transferring useful traits from wild relatives into elite lines that farmers can actually grow. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. But he’s convinced that success starts not in the lab, but in the way we communicate.

“The fact sheet model isn’t cutting it anymore,” he says. “We hand out a paper about a new variety and think that’s enough. But stories? Plants you can see and touch? That’s what stays with people.”

Bernardo practices what he preaches. At the University of Minnesota, he helped launch a student-led breeding program that’s working to adapt leafy African vegetables for the Twin Cities’ African diaspora. The goal? Culturally relevant crops that mature in Minnesota’s shorter growing season — and can be regrown year after year.

“That’s real impact,” he says. “Helping people grow food that’s meaningful to them, not just what's commercially viable.”

He’s also brewed plant breeding into something more relatable — literally. Coffee and beer have become unexpected tools in his mission to make science accessible. His undergraduate course on coffee, for instance, connects the dots between genetics, geography, and culture. “Everyone drinks coffee,” he says. “It’s a conversation starter. It’s a gateway into plant science.”