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Alberta MPs Commit To Help Farmers Struggling With Harvest

After wet and wintry conditions have left many farmers with unharvested acres in the field, Alberta Members of Parliament met up in Ottawa last week to determine the best way to assist producers through this difficult time.
 
Foothills MP, John Barlow, is among the group calling for immediate action from the Liberal Minority Government, and says first off, they'd like to see a reprieve on the carbon tax.
 
"The amount farmers are spending on drying grain, there's no exemption on that on the carbon tax, so that's one way for them [the government] to at least eliminate one very costly factor on their overhead."
 
Barlow and his colleagues have also committed to meet with their Alberta Government counterparts to collaborate on solutions, according to a release from Barlow.
 
They'll also be pushing the government to aggressively work to reopen the Chinese market to Canadian canola, make agriculture relief programs more responsive to farmers and remove arbitrary boundaries in determining tax relief and benefits.
 
Barlow says the financial strain of this developing crisis has the potential to impact the mental health of struggling farmers, and short term, the government could look at making adjustments to the cash advance program.
 
"We've heard with some of the even the advance payment program, that a lot of smaller farmers can't access that. They're just out of their reach financially."
 
Barlow says they also want to see the Trudeau Liberals complete the over due review of Business Risk Management programs promised over two years ago.
 
Barlow hopes the Liberal Minority Government will work with them on these issues facing farmers, but he's not holding his breath.
 
"We'll see who the new Agriculture Minister is. Maybe we'll have a better working relationship with this new person than we have had with Minister MacAulay and Minister Bibeau when they were the Ministers of Agriculture and Agri-Food."
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