'This is a Very Tough Day'Tobacco Protest

Source from:  Monte Sonnenberg SIMCOE REFORMER Thursday February 28, 2008 02/29/2008

Nearly 200 tobacco growers and their families gathered at the Simcoe office of MP Diane Finley yesterday to protest Tuesday's federal budget. Federal officials hinted recently that this week's budget would address growers' demand for a quota buyout. However, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty made no mention of the crisis in tobacco country. "This is a very tough day for us," Tom McElhone, chair of the Ontario Flue Cured Tobacco Growers Marketing Board, said from the steps of Finley's constituency office. "We have done everything they asked. We are very, very angry and very, very frustrated. We want to ask the question 'Why hasn't it been done and when will it be done?'" McElhone told the crowd he fully expected Flaherty to say something about tobacco this week in the House of Commons. With the budget come and gone, McElhone has requested an emergency meeting with agriculture minister Gerry Ritz and Finley to determine what went wrong and what will be required to bring these negotiations to a successful conclusion. "This government has led us down a path that means nothing but a dead end for our industry," McElhone said, adding Finley's office gave assurances there would be "political representation" at yesterday's event. No one from Finley's office showed up. Many at yesterday's protest were in a mood to vent. "How many more years is this going to take?" Annette Demaiter of Tillsonburg asked McElhone. "It's been three years already. One out of four students are smoking Indian cigarettes. What are they going to do about that?" G. Bridle of Clear Creek expressed frustration with the argument that opposition parties would bring down the minority Conservatives if they tried to pass a buyout package. Bridle's family has been growing tobacco since 1929. "Diane has lost all integrity as far as I can tell," she said. "Everything has to be political for these people. It has to be the right time for them before they do anything. The Conservatives got in because of the rural vote. How many votes did they get in Toronto? How many votes did they get in Quebec?" Chris Van Paassen of Port Dover, a director of the tobacco board, said the future looms as a huge question mark for himself and his colleagues. The answers they needed this week simply did not materialize. "It's what you're seeing here today," Van Paassen said. "It's the desperation of farmers who have no direction at all and who are receiving no help from any level of government. The people here have no direction. They need to sit down with their bankers and they don't know what to say to them." Tuesday, Finley noted there are 10 times as many hog producers in Canada as there are tobacco growers. Yet hog farmers only received $50 million in the budget, far less than the nearly $900 million the tobacco board sought at the outset to retire 271-million pounds of quota. In response to Flaherty's budget, Finley added tobacco growers have some tough "business decisions" to make in the weeks ahead. This week's lack of results occurs at a time when the tobacco board doesn't know how it will market the 2008 crop. The tobacco board is losing money on its operations and has said on several occasions that the auction exchange in Delhi is not sustainable at current crop sizes. McElhone also doesn't know what the future holds. "We're taking every step possible to move forward," he said. "We have looked at different options. None work without an exit program." Enditem