Farmers Rally at Dave MacKenzie's Office

Tuesday, 29 September 2015 13:24

Local MP Dave MacKenzie was on hand to greet roughly 50 farmers who stopped by to talk about the potential Trans Pacific Partnership.

WOODSTOCK - About 50 people rallied in front of our local MP's office this morning to let him know they don't want American milk shipped into Canada.

Members of the Oxford County Federation of Agriculture were at our local MP Dave MacKenzie's office today to share their concerns over the potential Trans Pacific Partnership TPP is expected to be wrapped up this week and farmers in Oxford County are anxiously waiting to see what will be included in the agreement.

Dairy Farmer Andrew Campbell tells Heart FM they want MacKenzie to know they need his support in preserving the integrity of our supply managed sectors.

"There's a lot riding on the economy here as to how successful our farms in general, but obvious poultry and dairy farms as well. So it's one of those things where, we're a big part of the economy, and we want to make sure our political leaders understand that."

The biggest concern for Dairy producers in Oxford is losing some of the Canadian market to Americans when we are more than capable of supplying our country with affordable high quality milk on our own. Dan Veldman, poultry farmer, owner of Veldman farm explains why he went to MacKenzie's office.

"We're all in it together as a supply manage sector. It effects us all - there's 5 supply manage groups in Ontario, 4 in the feathers and 1 in dairy. And when you take away from one you're hurting us all. We're here to show unity."

Communications Administrator with the OCFA Amy Matheson says they wanted to do something locally because they knew farmers wouldn't be able to make it to Ottawa in the middle of the busy Harvest season.

"Right now as we speak there is a massive rally happening in Ottawa on Parliament Hill complete with tractors - I know, we only have a milk truck. But there are a lot of concerned farm families and our point of today was simply to just gather support and have our current government reiterate their support for fair pricing and farm families."

Dave MacKenzie was on hand and welcomed the crowd saying the reports from the national media on the TPP are not entirely accurate and he supports local farm families. We will have more reaction from him and the other candidates who were at the event tomorrow morning.