In late spring 2024, Ontario Premier Doug Ford shuffled his cabinet, resulting in a new ministry and a new minister for Ontario agriculture. Rob Flack became head of the newly named Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Agribusiness (OMAFA), and we warmly welcome him to this role. There have also been staffing changes in the Minister’s office and we are also looking forward to working closely with his new team. 

The board and staff of the Ontario Fruit & Vegetable Growers’ Association (OFVGA) have previously worked with Minister Flack during his time as Parliamentary Assistant to his predecessor Lisa Thompson, as well as while he was serving as Associate Minister of Housing, and we will build on that relationship as our agriculture minister. 

Flack comes to OMAFA with a deep and long background in agribusiness, giving him unique perspectives on this diverse sector, its many stakeholders and the key role it plays in Ontario as one of the key drivers of the provincial economy. 

With our more than 120 commodities and seasonal labour needs, we are unique in Ontario agriculture with both our diversity and our complexity, and the Minister has stated that he is keen to learn more about the fruit and vegetable sector. 

At OFVGA, we’ve already taken steps to make that happen. The Minister is representing Ontario at the July 2024 federal-provincial-territorial meeting of Canada’s ministers of agriculture and OFVGA took part in a preparatory roundtable meeting to provide our perspectives on provincial issues

Our sector is facing many challenges as a result of sustained historically high input costs, increasing marketplace pressures, and mounting government burdens, costs, and red tape, which is causing significant frustration among growers as we urgently seek some support and relief through the provincial government. 

At an introductory meeting with Minister Flack, we focussed on how OFVGA can work with him to make progress on two key files for our sector: 

• -  enhancing the Risk Management Program (RMP), including Self-Directed Risk Management (SDRM) for edible horticulture farmers

• -  clearing a path to reduce burdens for building on-farm worker housing, including municipal costs, red tape and provincial Environmental Compliance Approvals. 

Enhancing Self-Directed Risk Management

For the past three years, we’ve been working with our Ontario Agriculture Sustainability Coalition (OASC) partners to advocate for a $100 million increase in provincial government funding for RMP/SDRM.  

Growers need additional support to help deal with the challenges of today’s farm business environment, such as rising costs, increasing regulations and pricing for our crops that are stagnant or even decreasing. This is essential to maintain profitable, competitive and sustainable fruit and vegetable production in Ontario – and help meet OMAFA’s goals under its Grow Ontario Strategy.  We continue to push our ask, which includes a phased-in approach to implementation. 

Reducing burdens for on-farm worker housing

The Ontario government has stated its goal of making our province the destination of choice for international agriculture workers (IAWs) and OFVGA is fully in support of this goal. To this end, we have developed a strategy that proposes a number of measures that would lead to a greater supply of on-farm housing for IAWs, both improving the experience of IAWs while in Ontario, and alleviating demand pressures on housing in nearby communities.

Growers have been actively working to build new on-farm worker housing that reflects modern realities of housing standards and comfort, but it’s a process hampered by rising municipal costs, conflicting regulations between jurisdictions and other red tape. 

A significant burden is the provincial Environmental Compliance Approval requirement by the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks for worker housing septic systems. These systems are a necessity in rural areas where municipal infrastructure is not available, but the ECA process is a major barrier and OFVGA has been working for more than a year to have this regulatory burden reduced. 

Given Minister Flack’s background and experience, we believe he can be the leader to spur the action needed to support growers, move past some of the current challenges, and encourage sector growth – and we look forward to building a meaningful and mutually beneficial working relationship.