Alistair MacGregor wants the Liberals to credit farmers for carbon sequestration
By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com
The federal NDP’s agriculture critic is ready to work with his Liberal counterpart to support Canadian farmers.
One of the ways the federal government can help farmers is to provide credits for storing carbon in the soil, said Alistair MacGregor, who’s also the B.C. MP for Cowichan-Malahat-Langford.
“I would like to find ways we can give farmers more credit for their carbon sequestration efforts,” he told Farms.com. “Farmers have repeatedly told us that they’re on the front lines of climate change and are dealing with tight margins as it is.
“When you have extreme weather events and uncertainty with climate change, we have to give credit to farmers for their ability to take carbon out of the atmosphere and store it in the soil.”
MacGregor is also watching how trade evolves.
The Trudeau government has set a goal of increasing ag exports to $75 billion by 2025.
Meeting that goal will require increased and sustained trade, MacGregor said.
“We export a lot of what we produce and there’s a lot of uncertainty on the world stage,” he said. “I think we have to take a hard look at what we’re doing.”
Keeping with trade, Marie-Claude Bibeau, the minister of agriculture and agri-food, should also ensure that Canadian farmers aren’t giving up too much.
During the Throne Speech, Governor General Julie Payette outlined the priorities for Prime Minister Trudeau’s minority government.
In the speech, Payette noted that “those in the supply management sectors will be fully and fairly compensated,” for concessions Canada made during trade agreements with the U.S. and Mexico (USMCA), the European Union (CETA) and Asian countries (CPTPP).
“We’re glad to see that was mentioned,” MacGregor said. “But those deals all carved out pieces of our supply management sectors. Going forward, if we are going to sign more deals, we can’t keep giving away portions of supply management to foreign competition.”
During its previous mandate, the Trudeau government committed to reviewing the suite of business risk management programs and the Grain Act.
MacGregor will keep a close eye on those two items, he said.
In addition to being named the ag critic, MacGregor is also the NDP’s rural development critic and deputy justice critic.
Conservative leader Andrew Scheer named John Barlow, the Alberta MP for Foothills, as his party’s ag critic.
Governor General Julie Payette mentions the supply management compensation in French starting at the 53:25 mark of the video.