Dozens of protesters milled about the lawn of Liberal MP Deb Matthew's office today in London.
They came to express frustration at the lack of initiative at Queen's Park to deal with pressing matters in the agriculture sector.
The protest was organized by the Grain Farmers of Ontario and the chairman Mark Brock was on hand to comment.
“The big issue is just the lack of leadership we're seeing from some of these rural-urban MPP's in the liberal cabinet. You know their ridings rely a lot on agriculture and they seem to just be letting the agricultural agenda fall to Minister Murray, minister of the environment and climate change and aren't standing up for some of the issues that we're pushing forward and we're just asking them why aren't they bringing those issues forward.”
One of the specific concerns from the GFO is that inadequate research has been done on the subject of pollinator health.
Brock says “I think it comes from the neo-nic seed treatment regulation, that draft regulation that they're looking to implement July first as such the expedited timeline on that and the lack of focusing on other influences of pollinator health they're just specifically looking at seed treatments right now and I think we need to stop slow down and have a more broad holistic conversation about it and this government just doesn't seem to be listening.”
The GFO Chair voiced concern that the needs of constituents in the rural and agricultural community are taking a back seat to the needs of Toronto and the GTA.
GFO members held a similar protest today at the Peterborough offices of Agriculture and Food Minister Jeff Leal.
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GFO Chair Mark Brock was part of the London event.
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Brock says they're frustrated with the Wynne government's refusal to address the concerns of the agricultural community.
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