Agriculture committee  Yes, thank you very much. Obviously our ask is for more funding going directly to mental health. On the preventive side, it's having a well-rounded and well-regulated—and by well-regulated, I don't mean over-regulated; I mean efficiently regulated—suite of programs that farmer

Agriculture committee  Yes, we're tapped into that, and actually I've been up in Ottawa for the past couple of days at a CFA board meeting. As I mentioned, I'm on the executive. They announced while we were in session that they were having these session groups relative to that. Here's the kicker: Trum

Agriculture committee  It's paramount. There is absolutely no excuse and no reason that level of stress should be put on farmers when you say you're going to study this further. If you know you're going to give away market access, then the next thing out of your mouth had better be, “Here's what we're

Agriculture committee  I don't have the actual number here in front of me, but I'll make sure that the office follows up and gets you those statistics. We do know that it is a well-run and well-utilized program. There has been lots of uptake and we've heard personal testimony from people who have used

Agriculture committee  No, there are not to my knowledge.

Agriculture committee  Yes, absolutely. As Fred alluded to, our national spending on health care lags far behind that of other countries. We need access to the tools and the resources to be able to help our farmers. As you have said, it is a shared responsibility. It's not only rural Nova Scotia or r

Agriculture committee  I think we all mentioned the need for a national strategy around mental health that's specific for farmers. Because we are faced with a set of unique circumstances, as Fred can well attest to, the average social worker is probably not in tune. While they are very well able to han

Agriculture committee  Yes, absolutely. In a nutshell, it's going to have a huge effect. It's going to be hugely detrimental to our industry. Our government of whatever political stripe that negotiates these trade deals has to stop using agriculture as a pawn when it comes to negotiating. When you l

Agriculture committee  You hit it absolutely right on the head. We're being attacked from all sides. I mentioned in my opening remarks that we're faced with a set of unique challenges such as droughts and pests that are out of our control. To a certain extent, though, we can do things about it. We ca

Agriculture committee  Thank you very much. Although the first one was very personal as well, the second one involved me, involved my farm. Five years ago we had a devastating barn fire. We lost 57 cows in that fire. That represented not just my family's lifetime but also my wife's. The farm is in m

Agriculture committee  My name is Chris van den Heuvel. I'm a third-generation dairy farmer from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Thank you very much for inviting me to speak before you here today. I appreciate the opportunity. During my time in the industry, I've had the opportunity to sit on many differ