Six out of the eight candidates running to be Oxford’s next Member of Parliament (MP) attended an All-Candidates meeting, hosted by Oxford County Federation of Agriculture, in Embro on Wednesday, April 16, 2025.
Event participants were Matthew Chambers, Canada’s New Democratic Party candidate; David Hilderley, Liberal Party of Canada candidate; Arpan Khanna, Conservative Party of Canada candidate; Melanie Van Brugge, United Party of Canada candidate; Akshay Vardhan, Independent candidate; and Jacob Watson, Christian Heritage Party of Canada candidate.
Eddie Matthews, event moderator, gave the candidates a chance to introduce themselves and one-and-a-half minutes each to answer a series of 14 submitted questions in regards to the agricultural industry.
Editor’s Note: Brant Beacon is highlighting only one candidate’s answer for the following six of the questions.
What would you or your party do to offset the impact of tariffs and trade disruptions on Canadian farmers, and our food supply?
Arpan Khanna, who is looking to be re-elected as Oxford’s MP, said the bottom line is that his party will not negotiate any of Canada’s quota away when it comes to supply management with the U.S.
“Canada is the home of the best farmers; we have so much potential when it comes to farming, and that needs to be exported across the world, not just to the U.S,” said Khanna. “Obviously, we share a strong relationship with the U.S., and we have to continue to build on that as well, but we have to start looking at other opportunities that do exist when it comes to that, but also processing. We’ve seen a massive shortage of processing plants, there are closures happening where we should be making more and producing more right here in Canada.”
How will you ensure work to reduce interprovincial trade barriers so that agriculture can serve and grow potential markets right here in Canada?
David Hilderley said that the Liberal party has already started the process.
“This is an easy one to answer, because our Prime Minister has already started the process. He has met with the Premiers and they have all agreed that the focus is to reduce those interprovincial barriers,” said Hilderley. “It was nice to see Doug Ford announce today that Ontario has made agreements already with Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, so the process has started. It was facilitated by the Prime Minister and he has made it very clear that he would like to have those barriers removed by Canada Day.”
Given that there are currently no practical, cost-effective alternatives to conventional fuels that farmers could use instead to dry grain, heat livestock barns or other agricultural buildings. Will you support permanently scrapping the carbon tax on fuels used in agricultural production?
Melanie Van Brugge told the moderator that the answer was in the question itself.
“There is no alternative for drying out grain,” she said. “When it comes to the carbon tax that’s being placed on that, it absolutely, 100 per cent has to go for two reasons. Number one, because there isn’t an alternative, and number two, because that’s part of our policy, to see the end of the carbon tax.”
Will you support strong agricultural business risk management programs that will help farmers deal with challenges and losses caused by factors beyond their control, like severe weather or tariffs, for example?
Jacob Watson, told the crowd that yes, the Christian Heritage Party are in support of risk management programs.
“We’re in support of BRMs like business risk management, and also the ones that are available right now and like AgriStability and Agrocrop,” said Watson. “We would also encourage people to use those programs, and l would be really interested in talking to farmers that have had to use those programs and how well they work for them.”
How will your party improve the immigration process for skilled and schooled labour and get them to the right jobs quicker?
Matthew Chambers said that immigration system needs to better recognize and support skilled immigrants.
“[We need to be] identifying people who already have skilled trades, who are applying for permanent residency or the immigration system,” said Chambers. “If you have a doctor who studied in a different country and has all their credentials and all their degrees and everything, here they’re relegated to driving a taxi, right? So, we need to identify people who already have the trades and the qualifications coming in, and make it more streamlined for them to be able to join the workforce once they come to this country.”
Grocery retailers continue to have strong profits [and in the] meantime, farmers are often pressured to provide products at lower costs, and feed is becoming more unaffordable for consumers. What will you do to support a fair and more balanced value chain from farm to fork?
Akshay Vardhan said that his answer was straightforward.
“We should remove the middleman, we should remove the grocery retailer, and we should promote more community stores and farm markets,” he said. “The government needs to support that. The government needs to help us advertise those, instead of helping the other big box grocery retailers. Also, the government should ease the rules on local selling; if a farm wants to sell its products directly, be it dairy, be it poultry or anything else, it should be eased by the government. There shouldn’t be so much red tape and bureaucracy on selling something directly to the consumer.”
Other questions throughout the evening centered around capital gains, the importance of agriculture in regards to Canada’s economy and society, stable trading environments, increasing renewable energy like biodiesel and ethanol, addressing the labour gap in the agriculture sector, and increasing domestic packing and processing facilities.
To learn more about the candidates themselves and what they stand for, the video recording is available on the Oxford County Federation of Agriculture’s Facebook page.
Kimberly De Jong’s reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative.The funding allows her to report rural and agricultural stories from Blandford-Blenheim and Brant County. Reach her at kimberly.dejong@brantbeacon.ca.
