Milk producers furious against Ottawa

Photo Fotolia
Dairy farmers are angry because the applications were already accepted Tuesday to qualify for the federal program of aid to producers of $250 million.

Andréanne Larouche

Wednesday, 30 August, 2017 09:07

UPDATE
Wednesday, 30 August, 2017 09:16

Look at this article

Dairy farmers are angry because the applications were already accepted Tuesday to qualify for the federal program of aid to producers of $250 million.

The president of the syndicat des producteurs du Saguenay – Lac-Saint-Jean, Daniel Gobeil, did not return. Since Tuesday he has received dozens of calls from producers in anger.

The period for making an application in the framework of this programme, aimed at helping dairy producers in the face of the opening of the canadian market to European, it ended suddenly around 15h, Tuesday, due to the too high number of requests. It will, therefore, have lasted a week.

Many dairy producers have not had the time to finish preparing their funding application for their project to upgrade their farm.

“People were working on their project. They said they were going to have a little bit of time given that the program is for five years. It has been announced until 2022. And there, pick them off with a web site closed, and with requests that are not taken up,” said Daniel Gobeil.

This program has been put in place by the federal government to help dairy farmers be more productive and to remain competitive, in order to prevent the impact of the economic and trade Agreement between Canada and the european Union.

The union of producers had already complained that the $ 250 million injected by Ottawa were insufficient to meet the demand and to really help the dairy farms.

The subject matter is likely to hear Wednesday and Thursday at Alma, where the caucus was from quebec mps of the liberal Party of Canada.