If you want to know what the next act of the so-called “freedom convoy” will look like, take a look at the Netherlands.
Over the past week, Dutch farmers have intensified their protests against the European Union’s plan to halve livestock emissions by 2030. They have dumped manure and set fire to hay on the highways to attract attention to legislation they say will put thousands of farmers out of business for good, and they have won support from far-right anti-climate politicians like Marine Le Pen, Geert Wilders and Donald Trump.
“Conspiracy theorists also painted the protests as an anti-establishment and anti-migration movement, arguing that the government has imposed anti-democratic restrictions on individual freedoms,” Politicsby Camille Gijs writing. Sound familiar?
To be honest, the Dutch government hasn’t really helped itself here. In a statement On its policy, the government said farmers have three choices: “Become more sustainable, relocate or end their business”. It’s the kind of language that fuels conspiracy theories about climate policy and its impact on the average citizen, and it threatens to set Europe ablaze right now.
Canada’s agricultural emissions targets aren’t as aggressive as those of the Netherlands, and it’s hard to imagine our federal government saying anything so cavalier about the future of its farmers. Even so, the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from fertilizers by 30% by 2030 has always drawn ire from Canadian farmers and their political appointees.
“If you push farmers against the wall with no room to maneuver, I don’t know where it will end,” Gunter Jochum, president of the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association, Told Bloomberg. “Just look at what is happening in Europe, in the Netherlands. They’ve had enough. »
Here in Canada, the battle lines are drawn on this issue. On the one hand you have climate activists rightly pointing to the role of fertilizers in increasing nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas about 300 times more effective at trapping heat than carbon dioxide. carbon. On the other hand, farmers rightly emphasize its role in increasing crop yields and productivity. In the middle is a federal government that seems determined to meet its climate goals without stepping on buck toes.
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One of them belongs to Fertilizer Canada, an organization whose members literally sell more fertilizer. He came out last year against the federal government’s plan with a report suggesting that if Canada followed in Europe’s footsteps, it could cost farmers up to $48.4 billion over the next eight years in due to declining crop yields.
But like from Canada National Observer Marc Fawcett-Atkinson pointed out in July, it was never really on the table. The Fertilizer Canada report “was based on the premise that Canada would follow the EU’s lead and demand a general reduction in fertilizer use,” he wrote. “Except the government had never said such a thing.”
Instead, the federal government wants to see reduced emissions from fertilizers, and there are farmers — like Darrin Qualman, director of climate policy for the National Farmers’ Union — who think it could actually help farmers. reduce costs and improve profit margins.
Opinion: Time will tell if they manage to dump real manure on major highways in protest, or if we’ll just have to deal with the metaphorical version thrown at our feds, writes columnist @maxfawcett.
In 2022 report from Farmers for Climate Solutions has shown that there are also costs associated with inaction. Climate goals are embedded in the purchasing decisions of companies buying Canada’s agricultural exports, and being a high-emitting producer will quickly become a competitive disadvantage. “Other countries are already investing more on a per acre basis in agri-environmental programs,” the FCS report says, “and with no new support in the next APF [agricultural policy framework]we risk losing our competitive advantage in the clean economy of the 21st century.
There is a legitimate and important conversation to be had here about the best — and more importantly, the less costly — way for Canadian farmers to reduce their emissions. The calls made by farmers to obtain a temporary reprieve from Canadian tariffs imposed on Russian fertilizer imports – which have added to the inflationary pressures felt by farmers – deserve a proper and speedy hearing.
But that can’t happen when politics trumps politics and sucks all the oxygen out of the room in the process. And right now, the Trudeau Liberals are choking on this issue. The fact that they don’t have a single MP in any of the farm communities in Alberta or Saskatchewan certainly doesn’t help. So is the constant drumbeat of fear and loathing directed at the federal government and Justin Trudeau by right-wing politicians and pundits who are popular in these communities.
In a recent TweeterUCP leadership slate Danielle Smith described the federal climate plan and its impact on the agricultural sector as a “direct attack on Alberta farmers,” while Lineco-founders Jen Gerson and Matt Gurney asked “What will godly climate change goals look like if they are to be measured against piles of emaciated bodies in the developing world? Because that’s the danger.
You can be sure that the convoy and its familiar cast of local leaders and political facilitators will be only too happy to point this out in the weeks and months to come. Time will tell if they manage to dump real manure on major highways in protest, or if we’ll just have to deal with the metaphorical version thrown at our federal government.
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