(Longueuil) Quebec and the union of agricultural producers have agreed to respond to several of the latter’s demands, announced Prime Minister François Legault at a press briefing at the head office of the Union of Agricultural Producers (UPA), Monday after -noon in Longueuil.
Posted at 2:52 p.m.
“We have an agreement of principles [qui] will go to the Council of Ministers next week,” declared Mr. Legault at the end of a meeting of around forty minutes in which the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, André Lamontagne, also participated. .
“It bodes well,” commented the president of the UPA, Martin Caron.
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, THE PRESS
Prime Minister François Legault with the general president of the Union of Agricultural Producers (UPA), Martin Caron
This agreement comes after five months of demonstrations by the agricultural producers’ union.
The parties refused to quantify the additional sums that Quebec has committed to providing to farmers, saying they are awaiting the decision of the Council of Ministers.
Additional sums will help pay for the climatic problems that occurred last year, such as the drought in Abitibi and the heavy rains that market gardeners suffered.
The program aimed at helping the next generation in the face of interest rates will be improved, and the moratorium on cultivable areas will be replaced by a regulatory framework. A reduction of 14 measures aimed at reducing “paperwork and bureaucracy” in the ministries of the Environment and Immigration is also planned.
Since the end of December, the UPA has held mobilization activities in 17 municipalities in Quebec.
More than 4,500 producers accompanied by nearly 2,500 tractors wanted to communicate “the concrete expression of an unequaled fed up”, mentions the UPA in a file on its demands.
The UPA, which says it represents some 29,000 companies, had divided its demands into “urgent demands” and “medium term” demands.
Read “Tractors leave fields for parking”
See the UPA’s demands
