Inflation, rising interest rates and explosion in fertilizer prices: Quebec farmers are at their wit’s end. They launched a real cry from the heart, Wednesday, to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on the effects of the difficult economic context.
The latter was passing through the head office of the Union des producteurs agricole (UPA) in Longueuil to hear their grievances. It was the first-ever visit by a Canadian prime minister to the head office of the union, which represents the province’s 42,000 farmers.
In an open discussion session which brought together a hundred farmers, he answered their many questions for about an hour.
“Right now, the next generation is panicking. It’s not going well, but really not well,” said Leïla Arbour, a young farmer from Gaspésie.
“From the moment you have no quality of life, you have no financial means, you have no social life: it’s a toxic relationship […] Our financial aid is loans. We’re all hooked up. We are all suffocating and we are being offered loans,” she lamented.
“Me, I can tell you, I am currently touring the regions and it is hundreds of families who have told me that they want to stop: because they do not feel supported”, for his part added the president of the Éleveurs de porcs du Québec, David Duval.
A family matter
Blueberry producer Yves Laurencelle then stepped up to the microphone to tell the tragic story of a young farmer in his area who recently attempted to take his own life.
“The little youngster, he passed the rope, but fortunately his parents found him [à temps]. I’m afraid that’s what will happen more and more in the months to come, because a family farm is a matter of the heart, it’s visceral. To go bankrupt and lose the business of your grandparents, your parents, me if that happened to me, I don’t know how I would react because I would have the impression of betraying my family. »
He says farmers on the verge of putting “the keys in the bank” need emergency financial help.
“I understand, it must not be easy to be the father of 32 million people, but today, if there is a cry from the heart that I can send to you on behalf of the producers, it is that we get help fast,” he told Trudeau.
Trudeau responds
At the end of the meeting, Justin Trudeau told the farmers that they had been “seen” and “heard”. Without committing to concrete aid, he said he was going to study the requests of producers.
“For me, the main priority is to make sure that we will help you [sans] fuel a new inflationary crisis, but allow you to hold on so that we get through these difficult months. You are agricultural producers: you know that there are good years and bad years. We are going through a very bad year, not because of the weather, but because of the economic context. We are going to be there to help you because we need you to be there, ”he replied.