Fall federal budget needs to take note of farmers’ and consumers’ food concerns

With the recently announced date of November 4 setting the stage for the first federal budget in Prime Minister Mark Carney’s term of office, several issues are on the table.

Some of these are being brought forward through the public consultation process.

The National Farmers Union (NFU) submitted its pre-budget policy brief to the federal government’s annual call for input. That brief details policy recommendations related to everything from increased supports for public plant breeding, policies related to the financialization of farmland and the need for public disclosure of corporate investments in agricultural lands, fair labour practices for migrant workers, use of on-farm data, artificial intelligence, and much more.

The brief clearly outlines that Canada needs to move away from free trade agreements and needs to apply economic independence and food sovereignty policies that protect Canadian family farmers from the dominance, destruction, and chaos of United States policies. The submission is clear and strong in its language and in identifying the severe problems created by economic integration with the United States.

Here are the major recommendations:

• A minimum 25 per cent budget increase for all food and agriculture regulators, including the Canada Food Inspection Agency, the Pest Management Regulatory Agency, the Canadian Grain Commission, and Health Canada, to ensure these authorities are free from regulatory capture and have the mandate and capacity to enforce public interest regulations effectively and fairly.
• Increased funding for the Canadian Border Services for enforcing Canadian regulations for food, plants and animals entering the country.
• Establishing a federal research and agricultural extension institution where farmers, scientists and agronomists together identify and solve climate change mitigation and adaptation-related problems and share the resulting knowledge through multiple channels, including in-person consultations and field days.
• Funding a participatory task force in 2026-27 to design new programs to be implemented when the current Agriculture Policy Framework cycle ends in 2028. This new framework will:

1. increase Canada’s capacity to produce, process, store and distribute food for domestic consumption in order to ensure a reliable supply of nutritious, high-quality food for residents of Canada;
2. safeguard farmers’ incomes;
3. advance Greenhouse Gas mitigation and support adaptation to climate change impacts on farms and agricultural infrastructure;
4. enhance biodiversity, water quality/conservation and toxicity reduction;
5. promote social inclusion and diversity of farmers and food sector workers;
6. promote successful establishment of young and new farmers; and
7. enhance rural community vibrancy and rural quality of life.

• That the federal government partner with provincial and municipal governments to establish a national local food purchasing procurement framework modeled after Brazil’s Programa de Aquisição de Alimentos for schools, hospitals, prisons and other public facilities.
• Revisions to Canada’s Temporary Migrant Worker programs, and to Immigration law and regulations to support full labour rights and a reliable pathway to permanent residency.
• Revisions to Canada’s Employment Insurance program to make it accessible to seasonal farm workers who are residents of Canada.
• Funding to enhance marketing boards’ capacity to expand new entrant programs and alternative production/processing opportunities.
• A 15 per cent increase in total funding to public plant breeding, including taking promising germplasm to the finished variety level for all crop kinds, including low-input varieties, to be distributed royalty-free.
• Hiring of early and mid-career plant breeders and plant breeding technical staff to retain and rebuild public plant breeding capacity.
• Amending the Canada Business Corporations Act (CBCA) to create a national public registry disclosing beneficial ownership of all farmland and those individuals who ultimately own or control these investments.
• Amending the Income Tax Act to eliminate flow-through treatment of all private equity firm investments in farmland, eliminate capital gains exemptions for private equity firm farmland investments and require foreign owners to pay a 100% surtax on all dividends from private equity funds with farmland holdings.
• that the federal government take a precautionary approach to AI use by the government itself, and develop a strong AI regulatory and governance framework for Canada with funding for monitoring, research and enforcement capacity to act when potential for harmful impacts are detected.
• that the federal government establish a digital governance framework that allows farmers to benefit from data generated on their farms and limit how agricultural big data may be collected and/or used by large agribusinesses, agricultural employers and ag-tech companies.
• a publicly-funded cloud service built and operated as a public utility by the federal government to counter tech company monopoly power, provide choice and uphold Canadian economic and political sovereignty.

Food Secure Canada along with several partner organizations have also submitted a policy brief with several recommendations. Those recommendations include supporting local food procurement by public institutions, and funding the rebuilding of local and regional infrastructure and markets, among others.

Along with pre-budget consultations there are also a number of Parliamentary petitions related to agricultural issues that are currently open. Petition e-6778, open for signature until October 5th, is related to Plant Breeders Rights and calls for the protection of Farmers’ Privilege to continue to allow seed-saving on their farms. The petition calls on the government to not remove the current access.

Petition e-6768 open until November 3 calls on the mandatory labelling of genetically modified foods and underscores several key issues as to why this is important.

Both of these House of Commons petitions are important actions on the food security front.

Let’s see what November 4 brings….

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