An investigation by The Narwhal published earlier this week details how the Alberta government allows millions of dollars of taxpayer money to wind up in the hands of ranchers grazing cattle on public land. 

It’s a complicated issue, involving ranchers, oil and gas companies, a broken regulatory system and — in many cases — taxpayers. 

Here’s the gist. In Alberta, ranchers can lease public land at below-market rates to graze their cattle. At the same time, oil and gas companies with wells on that public land must pay for yearly compensation for loss of the land and impacts from their operations. The catch? In Alberta, that money doesn’t go to the provincial government, which owns the public land, but to the rancher who leases it. 

There’s no cap on how much ranchers can receive in this way, and some receive compensation for hundreds of oil and gas wells. That means some ranchers are making a windfall — and not from raising cattle.

Ranchers say it’s fair compensation for the hassles of wells in a grazing area. But as the auditor general put it back in 2015, “current legislation allows an unquantified amount of personal financial benefit to some leaseholders over and above the benefits of grazing livestock on public land.” Some dubbed this “cowboy welfare,” when the report came out.

We set out to quantify it — and, crucially, to pinpoint how often taxpayers foot the bill.

You can read the full investigation here, but in the meantime here are five key takeaways about the broken regulatory system a former environment minister described as a “free-for-all.”

1. Ranchers leasing public land to graze cattle can earn six figures in compensation from oil and gas companies — every year

There are approximately 5,700 grazing leases across Alberta, covering roughly 5.2 million acres, or about five per cent of the province’s land base. 

The Narwhal drew on estimates and data gathered from public sources to estimate both the cost of leasing land to graze cattle and the amount ranchers are paid per oil and gas well on the public land where they graze.

The Narwhal’s analysis found some ranchers are earning well over $100,000 per year from oil and gas payments. 

According to The Narwhal’s analysis, one leaseholder with 233 wells spread across a grazing area is earning $349,500 each year in oil and gas leases alone. Another rancher, with 164 oil and gas wells, is earning $250,000.

2. $5 million in taxpayer money has been paid to grazing leaseholders in one region of Alberta — on behalf of delinquent oil and gas companies

Albertans cannot refuse oil and gas wells when a company comes knocking. In return, they’re owed compensation from the oil and gas company for the hassle. And — crucially — if the oil and gas company fails to pay, the Alberta government foots the bill on its behalf.

To get a clearer picture of the issues in 2026, The Narwhal focused on Cypress County, the County of Newell and the Special Areas in southeastern Alberta, sourcing public records, including leaseholder maps and government payments to landowners when oil and gas companies fail to pay what’s owed.

Data from the Land and Property Rights Tribunal, a government body that directs tax dollars to landowners and leaseholders when oil and gas companies don’t pay their rent, found that since 2021, $5 million in taxpayer money has been paid to grazing leaseholders in the region to cover company debts.

The Narwhal found one leaseholder received almost $600,000 in tribunal payments over that period. One grazing association was paid almost $1 million — all taxpayer money.

The government is supposed to recoup those funds from delinquent companies, but previous reporting from The Narwhal shows only a small fraction of tribunal payments, less than one per cent, is ever recovered.

3. For decades, the government has been called on to fix the system

Though successive governments have long known of the multi-million-dollar issue, none have acted to stop it. 

An auditor general report in 2015 castigated the province for allowing ranchers to earn undue profit off of public land. “Personal financial benefits are being derived from public assets,” the auditor general wrote.

In the report, the auditor general pointed to examples of ranchers receiving five times more oil and gas compensation than what they paid in rent.

In other jurisdictions, like Saskatchewan, compensation from oil and gas companies does not go to ranchers using public land to graze cattle. It goes to the government.

For decades, critics have called on the government to at least cap the revenue leaseholders can collect in compensation from oil and gas wells on public land. 

It has not.

4. Ranching associations have long argued against reforming the system

The issue of oil and gas compensation for grazing leaseholders has been controversial for decades, and includes a failed attempt by the Ralph Klein government to cap payments in the 1990s. 

That legislation was never proclaimed into law after intense backlash from ranchers and advocacy organizations. Among them was the Alberta Grazing Leaseholders Association.

Lindsye Murfin, with the Alberta Grazing Leaseholders Association, as well as the Western Stock Grower’s Association, told The Narwhal she takes issue with the idea that leaseholders are unduly benefiting from the current system.

When asked about leases where the density of wells would seem to make it impossible to actually ranch, Murfin said that just makes the job of the leaseholder more challenging and that compensation should be paid.

Compensation from oil and gas companies covers the hassle of oil and gas wells, including everything from chasing cattle after gates are left open, to weed control, loss of access to land as well as pollution and noise.

5. Alberta’s finance minister is among the recipients of taxpayer funds for compensation to his ranching on public land

Among the recipients of six-figure oil and gas compensation payments for grazing on public land is Alberta Finance Minister Nate Horner. 

His ranching business receives between $100,000 to $124,000 per year through contracts with oil and gas companies that operate on public land which he leases to graze his cattle, according to estimates by The Narwhal. 

And, as The Narwhal reported this week, when those companies fail to pay their bills, taxpayers have been paying the finance minister on the delinquent companies’ behalf.

Data from the Land and Property Rights Tribunal, which pays landowners — and ranchers who lease government land —  when companies fail to do so, shows Horner has received $87,246  in compensation from the province since 2021 for wells on his private property and on grazing leases. Of that, $47,200 was paid for sites on his grazing leases — in other words, he’s receiving public money for oil and gas wells on public land. 

The payments to Horner are all legal under current Alberta legislation and his press secretary, Marisa Warner, said Horner’s compensation is above board. 

“All of Minister Horner’s agricultural business holdings have been put in a blind trust since entering cabinet,” she told The Narwhal.

Updated on Apr. 30, 2026, at 10:32 a.m MT: This story has been updated to reflect that Lindsye Murfin is both the general manager of the Western Stock Growers’ Association as well as the manager of the Alberta Grazing Leaseholders Association.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Summary

• Ranchers in some parts of Alberta can earn six figures from oil and gas sites on public land they lease from the government for below-market value — and when companies don’t pay, taxpayers foot the bill.
• The system is legal, but has been criticized by the auditor general, who called on the province in 2015 to stop allowing “personal financial benefit” from leasing public land.
• An investigation by The Narwhal reveals that one of those ranchers is Alberta Finance Minister Nate Horner, whose family has a long history in politics — and in lobbying against reforms to the grazing lease system.

Alberta Finance Minister Nate Horner’s ranching business likely receives between $100,000 to $124,000 per year through contracts with oil and gas companies that operate on public land which he leases to graze his cattle, according to estimates compiled by The Narwhal. 

And when those oil and gas companies fail to pay their bills, taxpayers have been paying the finance minister on the delinquent companies’ behalf, The Narwhal has learned.

Data from the Land and Property Rights Tribunal, which pays landowners — and ranchers who lease government land — when companies fail to do so, shows Horner’s ranching business has received $87,246 in compensation from the province since 2021 for wells on his private property and on grazing leases, according to The Narwhal’s analysis. Of that, $47,200 was paid for oil and gas sites on his grazing leases — in other words, he’s receiving public money for oil and gas wells on public land. 

The payments to Horner’s ranching business are all legal under current Alberta legislation, but the ability of ranchers leasing land from the government to collect all of the oil and gas compensation was criticized by the auditor general in 2015.

Nate Horner Ranches Ltd., located east of Calgary, holds vast stretches of grazing leases — public land that is rented to ranchers for what critics say are bargain prices. Horner’s family has operated in the area, and leased land from the province, for generations. 

The family is also a political dynasty, counting MPs and MLAs — including both provincial and federal cabinet ministers — in its tree. His cousin, Doug Horner, is a former provincial finance minister.

In Alberta, oil and gas companies must compensate landowners for the adverse impacts of their activity. The province’s current rules also allow leaseholders to retain all such money companies pay to operate on those publicly owned grazing leases.

It’s a controversial framework that, in 2015, the auditor general said was allowing some ranchers to derive undue “personal financial benefit” off public land.

The Narwhal set out to understand the scope of the problem, focusing on three regions east of Calgary with many ranchers grazing their cattle on public land. The Narwhal’s analysis found taxpayers have footed the bill for millions of dollars in payments on behalf of oil and gas companies to ranchers leasing public land at below-market rates. 

And one of the recipients of those payments is the finance minister’s ranching business.

His press secretary, Marisa Warner, said Horner’s compensation is above board. 

“All of Minister Horner’s agricultural business holdings have been put in a blind trust since entering cabinet,” she said by email, adding the “minister’s assets, property and business holdings have all been properly disclosed, and placed in a management arrangement, approved by the ethics commissioner.”

Each oil and gas well brings in an estimated $1,856. Horner’s business has 67

The Narwhal estimated how much Minister Horner’s ranching business receives from oil and gas companies by looking at property maps that list both grazing leaseholders and oil and gas sites and counting the number of oil and gas sites on leases he holds. Nate Horner Ranches Ltd. had 67 sites.

That number was multiplied by $1,500, a per site figure cited by the auditor general in 2015 as an average compensation amount. By this calculation, Nate Horner Ranches Ltd. could receive an estimated $100,500 per year.

Figures from Land and Property Rights compensation decisions, however, show that Horner’s ranching business might receive a higher price. Based on the 21 claims he has filed since 2021 for unpaid compensation, the average cost per site is $1,856, meaning he could be earning as much as $124,386.

It’s unclear if Horner has any other stakes in operations owned by family members near his own holdings. The minister’s office did not respond to specific questions sent by The Narwhal. 

Warner directed questions about the government’s position on the current system to the Ministry of Environment and Protected Areas, which oversees grazing leases.

The minister of environment and protected areas office did not respond to a list of emailed questions.

The finance minister’s grandfather was among the loud advocates against reforming the system that benefits ranchers

The issue of oil and gas compensation for grazing leaseholders has been controversial for decades, and includes a failed attempt by the Ralph Klein government to cap payments. 

That legislation was passed quickly in 1999, but was never proclaimed into law after intense backlash from ranchers and advocacy organizations. Among them was the Alberta Grazing Leaseholders Association, which was led by Horner’s grandfather, Jack Horner, at the time.

The association formed to push back against the Klein government “directly attacking property rights of leaseholders.”

Those opposed to changing the system point out that while grazing leaseholders pay less than market price to use public land, the lease comes with responsibilities and costs. Ranchers using public land pay for all improvements and maintenance of the land, as well as paying property taxes.

“The leaseholder has purchased the right from the province to be the occupant of that land,” Lindsye Murfin, the manager for the Alberta Grazing Leaseholders Association and the general manager of the Western Stock Grower’s Assocation, said in an interview. “And with those rights come a lot of responsibilities.”

Her organizations argue against a cap on the amount of money a leaseholder can earn from oil and gas sites on their leases. As Murfin points out, the more wells there are in a grazing area, the more problems a rancher has to manage. 

The Land and Property Rights Tribunal payments are part of a grand bargain with Albertans. No one is allowed to deny access to an oil and gas company that wants to drill, and in exchange the government will cover compensation if a delinquent company stops paying. 

Those payments have exploded in recent years, as more and more companies walk away from their financial obligations — even as some continue to operate.

The total in 2024 was $30 million, which represents a 4,500 per cent increase in the amount of money the government is paying for these missed payments since 2010. The government says it works to recoup those costs from companies, but previous reporting from The Narwhal shows only a small fraction of tribunal payments, less than one per cent, is ever recovered.

Horner’s experience is a striking example of the impact of regulatory failure in the province.

Almost all of the tribunal payments to Nate Horner Ranches Ltd. cover unpaid leases by AlphaBow Energy, a company that was allowed to snap up thousands of wells it did not have the resources to manage or clean up.

Five years after the company was created through a complex series of transactions, the Alberta Energy Regulator suspended its licences. The regulator transferred supervision of the sites to the Orphan Well Association — a largely industry-funded organization that cleans up sites without a solvent owner.

This left thousands of wells without a viable owner. It also meant millions of taxpayer dollars were directed to landowners and leaseholders to cover unpaid compensation — Horner among them.

That’s just one example. The orphan well inventory increased more than 29 per cent in 2025, but the levy imposed on companies to cover those costs only increased by seven per cent this year.

In the past month, the orphan inventory nearly doubled with the transfer of wells from another troubled company, Long Run Exploration. Those wells are estimated to have added another $476 million in liabilities to the association’s expenses.

Methodology

The Narwhal’s Prairies reporter Drew Anderson and web developer Andrew Munroe created estimates for this story from data gathered from a public government database of decisions regarding compensation oil and gas companies are supposed to pay to landowners when they put infrastructure on their land. The database is called the Land and Property Rights Tribunal database and contains tens of thousands of records of rulings. Each ruling contains information on the oil and gas company that failed to pay its bill, the land or leaseholder to whom the debt was owed, the amount owed and more. It is an extensive database, with each individual ruling page containing data on company names and grazing leaseholders or landowners, the amount paid and whether or not the site is located on a grazing lease.

Information regarding well sites located on grazing leases was obtained by purchasing municipal land maps on an app named iHunter, which provides the names of grazing leaseholders, contact information and outlines oil and gas sites on those lands.

To estimate the average compensation for a site on Finance Minister Nate Horner’s land, each tribunal decision was cross-referenced with the number of years for which compensation was owed, and the number of sites tied to each claim. The number of sites was retrieved from albertawellfinder.com and based on the licence number attached to the tribunal decision.

Updated on Apr. 30, 2026, at 10:33 a.m. MT: This story has been updated to reflect that Lindsye Murfin is both the general manager of the Western Stock Growers’ Association as well as the manager of the Alberta Grazing Leaseholders Association.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

After years of punishing drought that shrunk their herds, Canadian cattle farmers finally saw them growing at the start of 2026. It was a modest 2.5 per cent increase in the number of cows and calves, but after eight years of contraction — which also meant increased beef prices at the till — those in the industry are taking it as a win. 

Brenna Grant, executive director of CanFax, the research division of the Canadian Cattle Association, called this a “really modest” increase, urging patience for those hoping affordability will return soon. 

Canada’s beef prices are 23 per cent higher today than the national five-year average, and, in general, meat prices rose by the highest rate of any food category in 2025, according to research from Dalhousie University. 

The biggest concern driving beef prices high is weather, Grant said. Climate pressures on pasture conditions means less hay to feed animals and, consequently, smaller herds.

“All of the research would indicate that we are expected to see greater frequency and severity of extreme weather events, whether that be drought or flooding or even just greater volatility within the growing season,” Grant said. 

Ranchers are heading into summer with mounting uncertainty, given spotty and unpredictable rain and snow patterns in recent years. “That just means that this rebuild, in terms of increasing supplies, is going to take longer.”

Droughts in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, where the country’s cattle farming is concentrated, have become regular and severe. Drought insurance payouts to Alberta farmers reached a record $326.5 million in 2023, more than tripling the payouts from the 2021 drought. 

Droughts also hit southern Ontario last summer, impacting Trenton, Belleville and Prince Edward Country farmers. Dry conditions present a host of challenges, from reducing the availability of local, affordable feed to farmers not having enough water available for their herds. 

At the same time, more northern areas of Canada that haven’t historically been seen as cattle country are starting to grow their local bovine populations, as more moderate temperatures become a welcome refuge for farmers. Warmer weather has been a boon in typically colder zones, making it easier to grow feed crops instead of importing them. 

Northern Ontario is one of those areas, including Sudbury, Nipissing and Cochrane, which had built up a herd 100,000 strong as of 2018. 

Grant said the Peace Region that straddles the Alberta-B.C. border is also seeing longer growing seasons, allowing for more crop varieties, including of animal feed. The same is true for northeast Saskatchewan, once considered too cold and wet, where warmer, drier conditions have improved growing.

“It’s the right use of that land for the right product,” said Jason Leblond, president of Beef Farmers of Ontario, and a cattle farmer himself in Chisholm, Ont. “Beef cattle do very well in the north.”

But, he says, while the shift may benefit local producers, it is unlikely to ease rising beef prices anytime soon.

“When we see the first signs of the herd rebuild, which is what we’re seeing currently, it normally takes two years for it to hit the store shelves — that price reduction,” Leblond said.

Building up northern herds, he said, is a big part of “how we can get the prices more in check.” He’s increasingly seeing farmers step up in these long-dormant farming regions.

Northern Ontario’s growing herd of cattle

In the early 2000s and 2010s, cattle farmer Mike Tulloch recalls driving roads in Algoma, Ont., and seeing derelict farms, growing back up to brush and weeds — signs of a dying industry. Tulloch grew up in the area with a lifelong ambition to take over his father’s farm and watched the landscape closely.

In the last decade, he’s seen a growing number of farmers revitalizing the area’s farms, many coming from southern Ontario or farther. His own land, he said, doubled in value since he bought it in 2018. Now, he owns a farm with about 1,300 head of cattle. 

“The face of agriculture in Algoma and Manitoulin has changed dramatically,” Tulloch said. “It’s driven out of the relatively inexpensive value of the land and is being bought up hand over fist and turned back into productive farmland.”

Tulloch has found himself in one of the most hospitable remaining areas for raising cows.

“No question that the climate change has been more conducive to farming in the near-north: Algoma, Manitou and Sudbury, Nipissing,” Tulloch said. “This is a case where climate change in our area has been good for the farmers.”

The Algoma area, at the cusp of lakes Huron and Superior, has the longest growing period across all of northern Ontario, from Nipissing up. By 2050, temperatures are predicted to increase between 1 C and 4 C, making that growing season even longer. 

“We have warmer winters. We get on the land sooner, and the ground in the north here warms up sooner,” Tulloch said, compared to previous years. “For our cattle operations, we grow about 750 acres of corn. And, ten years ago, there wasn’t 750 acres of corn in the whole district.”

While many Canadian cattle farmers are battling extreme weather events like drought, floods and wildfires, northern Ontario is emerging as somewhat of a sanctuary. 

Moving north won’t fix the challenges climate change presents farmers

Experts and polls have demonstrated the biggest challenge for cattle farming in Canada is the increased frequency of adverse weather events. While the northerly migration has eased the challenges for some cattle farmers, it’s not a silver bullet — and prices will continue to reflect that, especially as consumer demand for protein remains extremely high.

“In the last five years, we’ve actually seen beef demand jump twice, once in 2020 and we maintained those levels, and then again in 2025,” Grant said. “What that means is that consumers were willing to pay a higher price for the same amount of beef.”

The high demand and weather uncertainties are being experienced across the world, including in Canada and the U.S., leading to a global shortage of beef as production falls in traditional centres.

There are also no guarantees conditions will remain hospitable for cattle farming in northern climates. 

“In some regions of the country, certainly, there will be some increased opportunity,” Kim Ominski, University of Manitoba research scientist, said. “But the challenge about these extreme weather events is it just introduces increased risk.”

Unpredictable growing conditions might bring a year where farmers are unable to source enough feed locally. Since feed is one of the largest costs of raising cattle, Ominski said, having to import it — especially if that requires swapping the usual meal with a more expensive crop — can really impact a farmer’s bottom line. 

Across Canada, research links extreme climate-driven weather events to rising mental-health strain on farmers, causing guilt, hopelessness and panic. Many are leaving the industry.

Even Tulloch acknowledges the gamble.

“The weather is more erratic,” Tulloch said. “You see that when the storms come, there are heavier storms and you have more risk of flooding.”

“It’s a risky venture.”

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Summary

• In 2024, an extreme cold event caused many B.C. wineries to lose most of their grapes. In response, the province allowed wineries to join a program allowing the import of U.S. grapes, a practice usually reserved for larger commercial labels. 
• The full rules about how sales of wine made with U.S. grapes would be taxed were released months after wineries had already bought foreign fruit. Each winery got a sales tax exemption on a specific quantity of wine — after that, taxes could reach as high as 89 per cent. 
• These taxes apply to all sales for as long as wineries sell any wine made with U.S. fruit, even if the actual bottle in question is made with 100 per cent B.C. grapes. The result, winemakers say, is losing out on years of profits and, possibly, going out of business.

The program offered a lifeline when the forecast was unequivocally dire. In January 2024, temperatures dropped below -25 C in B.C.’s Okanagan, Thompson and Similkameen Valleys — the province’s agricultural breadbasket. 

The cold snap in the Interior came right after unseasonable daytime highs of 10 to 13 C. The weather whiplash hit the area’s fruit trees hardest: acres of peaches, pears, plums, apples and nectarines were damaged, with the plants’ buds dead come spring. The ripe, juicy produce tourists flock to the Okanagan for in summer and fall never arrived.

The deep freeze also crushed one of B.C.’s most prized commodities: wine grapes. More than 90 per cent of the Interior’s annual harvest was lost, which meant nearly 90 per cent of the province’s total vineyard acreage. Suddenly, a $3.75-billion industry was in crisis. 

“There were zero grapes,” Paul Sawler, vice-president and general manager of Dirty Laundry Winery, a mid-sized winery in Summerland, B.C., recalls. The winery’s 100 acres of vineyards produced almost no fruit.

“Where we would normally see 300 to 400 tonnes [of grapes], we got less than half a tonne from all the vineyards combined,” Sawler says.

The solution seemed clear at the time: “There was no way to survive except to buy Washington State grapes.” 

In British Columbia, alcohol is regulated by the BC Liquor Distribution Branch, a government body long assigned to the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General. In July 2025, it was transferred to the Ministry of Agriculture and Food — a nod to the realities of producing a weather-dependent consumer good in an increasingly volatile 21st-century climate. For winemakers and grape growers, who had seen several difficult years of damage to their vineyards from extreme weather, it was a welcome move.

Under the liquor branch’s policy, certain wineries — mostly larger operations that hold a commercial winery designation — are allowed to import foreign grapes to complement their B.C. fruit. Often acquired from the U.S., these grapes produce wines that the liquor branch taxes at high sales mark-ups — the dollar amount the branch charges a winery when it sells its wines directly to consumers, restaurants or other distributors.

Regulations normally prevent most small and mid-sized B.C. wineries from purchasing foreign grapes. This is part of the liquor branch’s complex policy, which involves different regulatory and taxation systems not just for different types of wineries, but also for direct-to-consumer sales versus sales through the liquor branch. The short version is that independent, “land-based” wineries are required to use exclusively B.C. fruit, in exchange for which a good chunk of their sales are tax-exempt. 

After the 2024 freeze, the liquor branch relaxed these rules, allowing a wider range of wineries to import grapes to salvage their businesses. But bringing in foreign grapes meant signing on to a program that limited each winery’s tax-exempt sales. 

“We really had no choice,” Sawler says of his decision at Dirty Laundry. Though most Okanagan wineries were committed to making B.C. wines with B.C.-grown grapes, the weather had decided for them. 

“If we didn’t buy the grapes, we would have had to lay off half our staff,” Sawler says. “We probably would have had wine to sell at the winery, but we would have lost our whole outside market — a market that we spent the last 20 years building.”

So, Dirty Laundry and 91 other wineries in the area rolled the dice and brought in foreign grapes to make their 2024 wines. 

“I don’t regret buying them,” Sawler reflects. “The quality was good; the pricing was good. It worked out well.” 

But the decision has come with a latent — and significant — unanticipated cost. The limit on wineries’ tax-exempt sales was based on a complicated calculation many did not understand at the outset. In fact, some didn’t understand they’d be subject to mark-ups at all. Now that the program is in its second year, some wineries have wine they can’t sell without a significant financial hit.

“A program that was basically designed to help wineries, in some cases may actually kill some wineries,” Sawler tells The Narwhal. “Those are extreme cases … but it is happening”

“We know how devastating the 2024 freeze event was for grape growers and wineries in the Okanagan and we’ve worked together with the B.C. wine industry to help them recover,” Minister of Food and Agriculture Lana Popham told The Narwhal in an emailed statement. 

“The Liquor Distribution Branch will continue to work closely with wineries and Wine Growers BC.”

A program that brought wine flowing back into B.C. has soured

The vintage replacement program, or just “the program,” as many in the industry refer to it, was first announced in July 2024 and laid out in fine print in a liquor branch memorandum that October. Importantly, this was after most wineries had already purchased U.S. and foreign grapes. 

For the 2024 vintage, the BC Liquor Distribution Branch would permit wineries that opted in to the program to purchase foreign grapes or a partially fermented product known as unfinished juice, and would treat any wine produced from those products the same as B.C.-grape wine. That meant the liquor branch would offer the tax exemption usually reserved for certain types of 100 per cent B.C. wine to all B.C. wineries using foreign grapes.

This main component of the program was a success. Wineries like Dirty Laundry and many smaller, newer wineries kept their staff, juiced their grapes and made wines they were proud of. The wider industry, which supports a substantial economy of restaurants, hotels, hospitality workers, supply companies, migrant agricultural workers and small family businesses remained afloat.

But the details were a shock to many.

The exemption wasn’t a blanket exemption. Each winery had what was known as a “support cap,” or a limit on tax-free exemptions. Wineries’ individual caps were based on an “Olympic average” of five years of previous mark-up exemption totals — for land-based wineries, of their B.C.-grape wines; for commercial wineries, of B.C.-grape wines certified by the BC Wine Authority’s Vintner’s Quality Alliance, or BCVQA. This was a dollar value calculated by taking the mark-up exemption on sales numbers from the past five years, dropping the highest and lowest numbers, and averaging the three remaining years. 

Sales over that limit were taxed at the liquor branch’s standard rates for foreign-grape wines — as high as 89 per cent on the first $11.75 of the wine’s per-litre value, and 27 per cent after that. 

The calculation didn’t pose a problem for many commercial wineries used to importing foreign grapes — and selling huge volumes. It was also doable for many established wineries that had relatively steady sales over the period in question and dedicated accounting departments. It did pose an issue for many newer, growing independent wineries, though. 

Another surprise was how long a program meant to help with one bad year was going to last. The ability for wineries to buy foreign grapes for tax-exempt wine was extended for the 2025 vintage, to account for any lingering cold snap effects on the province’s vineyards. Additionally, once participating wineries brought in foreign grapes, they were tied to the vintage replacement program until they’d sold every last bottle of wine containing U.S. grapes.

This all means the support cap will remain in effect until March 2028, to account for the added year of foreign grapes, and sales of wines that take longer to produce, like reds or sparklings. 

All that, and the mark-up exemption limit each participating winery received was not exclusive to its U.S.-grape wines. Post-limit taxes would be applied to all the wine a participating winery sold. 

Let’s say a winery had 5,000 cases of U.S.-grape wine — “replacement” wine — left to sell, starting this year. That newer stuff would likely share shelf space with bottles of carefully cellared, 100 per cent B.C.-grape wine from years past, too. Signing onto the program meant this B.C.-grape wine would count toward the winery’s annual mark-up exemption limit. Which means that once the winery hit the annual limit set by its Olympic average, this 100 per cent B.C.-grown-and-produced wine would be taxed the same way as malbec from Argentina: at up to 89 per cent. 

In an emailed statement on behalf of the liquor branch, the Ministry of Agriculture said that “to ensure revenue neutrality and fairness across the sector, the annual support cap … includes all wines sold within the fiscal year, including vintage replacement wines, BCVQA and 100 per cent B.C. grape wines.” 

The ministry added that a support cap based on historical sales data was recommended by Wine Growers BC.

“From the outset, there were very clear guidelines communicated to the wine industry about eligibility and annual support caps, and it was intended to help the industry keep the lights on during a very serious agricultural emergency,” Minister Popham told The Narwhal.

“It is in everyone’s interest to return to producing 100 per cent B.C. wine production.,” the liquor branch-attributed statement concluded.

Small, new B.C. wineries suffering the most under program’s limits

Paul Sawler’s neighbour in Summerland, Ron Kubek, started Lightning Rock, a small, family-owned business just up the road from Dirty Laundry, in 2017. It’s grown steadily ever since. 

“I think the problem in the wine business is that too many people in ownership or in the tasting room want to show how smart they are,” he says. His greatest pride is his winery’s consistent five-star ratings on Google, which show that everyday people appreciate Lightning Rock’s approach.

“Wine is supposed to be something that’s enjoyed among friends and family. Some of my favourite reviews are, ‘It was my first time in the tasting room and they didn’t make me feel dumb.’ We can talk about the technical stuff, but we’d rather just have fun.”

Kubek hasn’t shied away from sharing his views on the program, which his winery also opted into after losing its 2024 harvest. 

“We’re still small, but we’ve experienced tremendous growth, from just a few bottles in 2018 and 2019 to [when] the pandemic hit and wine sales went through the roof,” he tells The Narwhal. 

But that initially promising upward trajectory is now proving an impetus to further growth. The program calculated Lightning Rock’s mark-up limit using the low sales volumes of its early years, and now the winery isn’t eligible to sell much tax-exempt wine.

Kubek says his situation is “not because we brought in too many grapes from the U.S. — we brought in about 60 per cent of what we would normally do in a year after the catastrophic [harvest] loss — but because … [the liquor distribution branch] took what was a simple program and misapplied the Olympic average to help jack up revenues and get their bonuses.” 

Lightning Rock’s speciality is single-varietal wines, a large portion of which are reds and sparklings that take several years to age. That means Kubek will likely have to remain in the program until 2028. As a result, he has to carefully calculate the amount of wines from previous B.C. vintages he can sell each year without losing too much profit.

“The problem is that my previously B.C. [tax-]exempt wines are now being taxed or in danger of being taxed,” he says. “So I’m trying to grow, but I have a limitation, because if I do grow, I’m suddenly hit with an 89 per cent tax.” 

So Kubek, like many Okanagan winery owners, was holding back sales in March when he spoke with The Narwhal — waiting anxiously for the liquor branch’s fiscal-year turnover of April 1 to reset his mark-up limit. For a small winery with hard-won personal relationships with restaurants and other distributors, the cost is significant. 

“I’m having to tell my sales agents, ‘Hey slow down on sales,’ because I’m very, very close to going over my Olympic average and then suddenly I’m going to be paying 89 per cent tax on a bottle of wine.”

Kubek says he would have been able to sell an additional 1,000 cases of wine in the last fiscal year if it weren’t for his mark-up cap.

In response to The Narwhal’s questions about these limitations, the agriculture ministry noted, “While some wineries accessing the temporary supports have exceeded their annual cap and are facing payment obligations, many other wineries planned their operations around the annual support cap or chose not to access the temporary supports. Any changes to the policy directives or requirements mid-stream would not be fair to these businesses.”

Kubek feels frustrated. “I lost all my fruit. I had to pay for fruit to come in and now the government’s penalizing me if I try to grow.” 

He believes the program has hurt wineries like his the most. 

The support cap clause in the vintage replacement program was meant to prevent some of the Okanagan’s biggest wineries from bringing in more cheap foreign grapes than they normally would while paying below-normal sales taxes, Kubek says. It was supposed to prevent these grapes from flooding the B.C. market, which could have changed the industry’s local fingerprint and provided an unfair advantage to some. 

But what the government feared never happened, and the little guys are the ones now being hurt, Kubek says. He pointed to two wineries under the same ownership — Kelowna’s Mt. Boucherie Estate winery and Rust Wine Co., a smaller winery in Oliver — which confirmed they have had to lay staff off as a result of tax bills currently exceeding $500,000.

The agriculture ministry told The Narwhal, “In recognition of the payment obligations for those that exceeded their cap last fiscal, the [BC Liquor Distribution Branch] will continue to work with wineries to explore flexible payment arrangements within reasonable timelines.”

B.C. wine industry is pushing for solutions to a complex situation

Jeff Guignard is the CEO of Wine Growers BC, the primary industry marketing and lobbying organization for B.C. wines. He has heard his fair share of complaints about the vintage replacement program, including from Kubek, who he speaks to nearly daily. He also speaks with the provincial government every week, trying to find a solution for wineries who say the taxation approach has pushed them to the financial brink.

“This program was an essential lifeline to industry in a moment of generational crisis,” Guignard says. “It literally saved people’s businesses. There are wineries in B.C. that would not be in operation without this program. So we’re immensely grateful to government for that.” 

But, he adds, “It’s now clear — because things were rushed, and though everyone was doing their best — that the program has had some unintended consequences.” 

Guignard says the constraints built into the program for good reason are now injuring the very people and businesses the program was designed to support. 

“The constraint is acting as a limit on sales,” he says. “You could be selling, right now, a 100 per cent made-and-bottled-and-grown-in-B.C. wine, that was bottled years ago, prior to the freeze, and prior to the program being developed. But it counts against your business as though it were part of the program.” 

Guignard says the problem with the program is its one-size-fits-all approach, when the province’s wine industry ranges from huge, established players like Arterra Wines Canada or Andrew Peller Ltd., which both own multiple wineries, to medium-sized operations like Dirty Laundry and smaller newcomers like Lightning Rock. 

He says he knows of over a dozen wineries that have gone over their support cap and received invoices from the provincial government — businesses being treated “as though they were importing foreign wine into the province.”

“The program was designed to help you not have to do that,” he says, adding that one person told him, “ ‘I wish I hadn’t brought any fruit in. I would have had no wine, and I would have had to lay off all my staff, but my business would actually be in a better place, financially.’ ”

Adding to the challenge is the fact that the 2025 grape harvest in the Okanagan and Similkameen was — to everyone’s surprise — highly productive. Many of the vines that had survived the cold freeze produced abundant fruit, but grape growers unattached to specific wineries were left without customers. Businesses trapped in the “golden handcuffs” of the program, as Guignard terms it, weren’t buying, because they weren’t looking to make new wines they couldn’t turn a profit on. 

With growers, too, facing financial hardship, the program has in some ways simply deferred the crisis it was trying to prevent. The crucial support the program offered when the industry seemed on the brink of collapse has turned into an albatross hanging over some winemakers’ necks. 

“From a Dirty Laundry perspective, I’ve taken the position that if I had 1,000 cases of imported wine left over at the end of March next year, I’d dump it before I’d stay in the program another year,” Sawler says. “That’s the amount of impact it’ll make on our winery. We’d be better off to throw the wine away or to sell it for nothing … to make it go away.”

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Summary

• Farmers in Saskatchewan are dealing with variable weather, exacerbated by climate change. For many, this has meant hotter, drier summers, but the experience is far from universal.
• In some areas of Saskatchewan, growing conditions have improved with a changing climate.
• Farmers are also better equipped to deal with harsh weather, as new technologies and farming practices develop.

Scott Hepworth’s great-grandma used to have to shovel dirt out of the kitchen after dust storms swept across the Prairies.

More than a century later, drought is still a factor on Hepworth’s fifth-generation family farm near Assiniboia, Sask. In fact, it remains a defining feature of the land, which sits within the Palliser Triangle, one of Canada’s driest agricultural regions. 

But despite increasingly volatile weather in recent years, including long dry spells, record heat and sharp swings between extended drought punctuated by patchy rain, Hepworth says his crops aren’t suffering — instead, they’re performing better than expected in these conditions. 

He estimates that since he began farming in 2004, his crop yields during hot, dry summers have roughly doubled compared to what they were a few decades ago. 

It’s come as a surprise to some farmers across the Prairies: they are seeing the impacts of climate change, yes. But those impacts haven’t necessarily been bad for their bottom lines.

Only a few hours away from Hepworth’s farm, in northeast Saskatchewan — a region once considered too cold and wet — warming temperatures and drier conditions have improved growing conditions. 

“We were the worst place in the province to farm when I started farming, and now we’re the best place,” Ted Cawkwell, who owns a farm in the area with a couple partners, says.

On his land, fields that were historically difficult to seed and harvest are now more reliable. And he hasn’t seen damaging early frosts, once common every few years, in decades. 

Cawkwell says yields on his farm have improved dramatically over the past decade. The area overall has seen some of the highest yields in the province in recent years.

While there are several reasons for this — including better crop genetics and farming practices — Cawkwell believes changing weather patterns have been a major factor, too. 

“Twenty years ago, I would have never guessed the climate could change like this. You think of climate change as in tens of thousands, or millions, of years — not twenty. And that’s kind of the scary part of this.”

Farming wins are a combination of changing weather and new practices

Of course, the story is nuanced. On Hepworth’s farm, it’s not just the changing climate that has improved his crops. Conserving moisture has long been a focus for the family. Hepworth’s dad adopted what’s known as minimal-till seeding in the 1980s — essentially, reducing or eliminating the need to plough the soil when planting new seeds. This has improved soil health and reduced erosion. Another practice that Hepworth believes has benefited his farm is called continuous cropping, meaning every acre has a crop on it every year; roots in the ground rather than bare fields help retain moisture and protect the soil.

Advances in crop genetics have also played a big role, Hepworth says. He also serves as a director for SaskWheat, the Saskatchewan Wheat Development Commission — a farmer-funded organization that invests in wheat research and crop variety development. Over the past several decades, hundreds of millions of dollars in public and farmer funding have gone into developing new wheat and durum varieties in Canada. Hepworth is now able to grow drought-tolerant wheat and durum varieties bred to be shorter and better able to withstand stress.

It’s all helped. Hepworth, now in his early 40s, has his own memories from his childhood, of dust storms so intense he couldn’t see across the yard. Largely because of improved farming practices and soil management, he hasn’t seen one since. 

For Hepworth, a combination of climate, farming methods and technology have led to increased success.

But the experience is anything but universal.

“It’s been quite variable, even within a few kilometres,” he says. 

In parts of southern Saskatchewan, particularly deeper into the Palliser Triangle, recent conditions have had a very different impact.

A few hours southwest of Hepworth’s farm is Climax, Sask. — one of the driest regions in the province. 

Here, farmer Cody Glenn says he has experienced about six consecutive years of drought on his farm. 

In 2021, the worst year for drought in Saskatchewan in two decades, Glenn says 260 acres of barley resulted in almost nothing. The crop couldn’t even be properly harvested, producing just a couple bales of low-quality feed.

In other recent years, his barley yields were around a quarter of what they should be. 

In light of all this, he says his current strategy is just to stay viable. 

Despite changing weather, crop yields overall are holding — and even rising across the province

Even though there’s no question some farmers have struggled under increasingly variable weather across the Prairies, crop production has not declined as sharply as some predicted. 

The reality is far more nuanced, Dave Sauchyn, a leading Canadian climate scientist with a focus on the Prairies, says. 

“There’s no single climate,” he says. “It varies a lot from place to place.” 

Across the Prairies, climate change is showing up most clearly through warmer winters and longer frost-free seasons, rather than consistent increases in extreme summer heat, he says. 

In many areas, peak temperatures still haven’t exceeded those seen in the 1930s, in the “Dust Bowl” era.

Water patterns, however, are shifting in more complex ways, he adds. Snow is generally melting earlier, more precipitation is falling as rain instead of snow and less water is available later in the summer. 

As a result, Sauchyn says, drought remains the main concern. That pressure is most acute in the Palliser Triangle, where dryness has long shaped farming practices. But in recent years, moisture stress has also become more common in parts of the northern and eastern grain belt — areas that historically faced fewer drought constraints.

And not all these changing patterns are bad for farming regions. 

Fewer and shorter cold periods are extending the growing season. In some regions — particularly along the northern and western margins of Saskatchewan — this is actually improving production, as Cawkwell has seen on his farm.

And despite increased variability, overall crop performance has remained relatively strong. Yields for major Saskatchewan crops such as wheat and canola have generally trended upward over the last couple decades, with many recent years coming in at, or above, long-term averages. 

Jeff Schoenau, a soil scientist at the University of Saskatchewan, says this reflects decades of improvements in farming practices.

He says comparisons of Prairie soil samples from 1996 to 2018 show significant gains in key indicators such as microbial biomass, respiration and organic matter — factors that contribute to healthier, more resilient soils. These improvements are the result of smarter farming practices, he says. That includes conservation tillage (avoiding or minimally ploughing a field every year), diverse crop rotations (not planting the same monocrop in the same field year after year) and more precise use of fertilizers.  

Combined with advances in crop genetics and other improved farming strategies, Schoenau says crops today can withstand conditions that would have caused far greater losses in the past.

And while climate scientists like Sauchyn expect continued variability — and potentially more severe drought — Schoenau believes farmers will continue to adapt. 

“Farmers are pretty resilient, and when things change, they adapt and they use all of the resources and ingenuity and expertise available.”

Some scientists and farmers are cautiously optimistic — but not all

Sauchyn is also cautiously optimistic. 

He is clear that prolonged drought would pose serious challenges, particularly in a warmer climate. It will be critical, he says, to understand the difference between what’s a short-term blip and what is a long-term trend. 

But his team’s projections, based on large geospatial datasets of climate, soils and yields, suggest that northern and western margins of the grain belt may continue to benefit. That’s because it’s getting warmer and growing seasons are getting longer.

This offers little hope to farmers like Glenn, who lost the lottery in terms of farm placement. 

He says farmers in his area are displaying their despair.

“There’s more land for sale down here than there is buyers.”

For now, he hopes crop insurance will help carry him through, but if dry conditions persist, the path forward becomes less clear — particularly in areas where irrigation options remain limited. 

“I know I’m an optimist. I always have been, but it’s really hard to see the future currently.”

Hepworth is inspired greatly by his great-grandparents, who persisted through their own tough times.

“We’re in a dry cycle now, but farmers always find ways to adapt, and we’re always looking for ways to improve our soil health and leave our land in better shape for the next generation,” he says. 

“I feel as though every generation on this farm has had it better than the last, and that’s what motivates me.”

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Summary

• Ducks Unlimited Canada announced it is providing $1-million worth of land to a farming research organization in Manitoba.
• Brookdale Research Farm north of Brandon, Man., will now have more space to test farming and conservation practices.
• The organization says cattle farmers are important partners in conservation on the Prairies, where wetlands are regularly lost to agriculture.

We’re trying out staff-written summaries. Did you find this useful? YesNo

A Manitoba farming research non-profit will now have more space to let cattle roam and graze on prairie grasslands — and study how that grazing impacts biodiversity — through a partnership with Ducks Unlimited Canada.

On Monday, the long-standing conservation organization announced it is providing $1-million worth of land to nearly double the size of the Brookdale Research Farm just north of Brandon, Man. 

“This expansion of land is going to be an opportunity to do commercial-scale case studies and data collection … and then share it back to producers in a real-world setting,” Mary-Jane Orr, general manager of Manitoba Beef and Forage Initiatives, said in an interview.

Brookdale Farm — one of two farm stations managed by Manitoba Beef and Forage Initiatives — typically tested new technologies, land-management practices and other farming innovations on a smaller footprint, less than 20 acres at a time. With the addition of the 467-acre Odanah Pasture, the organization will be able to work with farmers at a more true-to-life scale, helping ease the risk for farmers looking to implement new practices with their herds.

“Oftentimes when you’re doing research at a small scale, the question is: ‘Will this work on a larger farm?’ So this is actually putting that application into practice and showing that, actually, yes, this is going to work for larger farms here in Manitoba,” Karli Reimer, head of communications and outreach at Ducks Unlimited Canada for the Prairies region, said in an interview.

The new parcel is also an opportunity to showcase the impact of restoring croplands to their natural state, Orr added.

Ducks Unlimited Canada purchased the land in 2020 with funds from “conservation-minded government agencies in Canada and the United States, including Manitoba’s conservation trust,” according to a press release. The parcel had previously been used for crop production, and its wetlands and uplands had been drained. Over five years, Ducks Unlimited restored the land to its natural state: a rich grassland with more than 100 wetland basins. 

Healthy wetlands and grasslands are a win-win for cattle farmers and conservationists alike.

“More productive grasslands make for more productive cattle. But those more productive grasslands are also making more productive ecological areas,” Melissa Atchison, a southwest Manitoba cattle producer and the research and extension specialist for Manitoba Beef Producers, said in an interview. 

“Being able to get good production out of our cattle while also providing great benefits from a biodiversity standpoint, from a habitat standpoint, from an ecological goods and services standpoint, is just a really cool win for everybody involved.”

Historically, bison roamed the wetland-dotted prairie, Orr said. As they grazed, they helped diversify the grasslands and created a canopy structure for wildlife and waterfowl. Today’s cattle farms can effectively mimic that process.

“It’s creating this beautiful net win: keeping cattle on the landscape is maintaining habitat for untold numbers of species, from pollinators all the way up to mallards,” she said. 

Orr said Beef and Forage Initiatives is in the process of landing a collaborator who will raise cattle on Odanah Pasture and share data about their decision-making process, economics and marketing decisions. The research will be shared with other farmers, helping demonstrate what processes, technologies and land-management decisions are most effective for the cattle, the business and the land. 

“We need to be profitable, and environmental sustainability is a big piece of that profitability,” Orr said. 

Manitoba’s billion-dollar beef sector, comprising more than 6,500 cattle farms, plays a key role in conservation, Reimer said.

Monday’s announcement marked the third annual Ducks Unlimited Canada Day in Manitoba, an official recognition honouring the organization’s 90-year history supporting conservation in the province, as well as Manitoba Agriculture Awareness Day.

“Ducks and cows have a lot in common,” Reimer said. “We really care about habitats for waterfowl, wildlife and people — grasslands and wetlands — and that is exactly what the beef sector needs to be profitable and productive.”

Julia-Simone Rutgers is a reporter covering environmental issues in Manitoba. Her position is part of a partnership between The Narwhal and the Winnipeg Free Press.

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Dave Armstrong struggles to describe the smell that sometimes wafts onto his property just outside Dawson Creek, B.C. 

“It’s sharp, foul and it’s an oily smell, but not like a refined oil,” Armstrong says. “This has a real foul, strong odour and it’s not nice. It really irritates you fast.”He lives about one kilometre from an oil and gas waste disposal facility. Sometimes, the smell is just an unpleasant annoyance. Other days, he says, it’s much more.

“There are times where it will just be an instant headache when it hits,” Armstrong says. “And if it’s in the summertime and the windows are open in the house … it takes a long time to get that odour out.”

Brenda Delamont lives just down the road from Armstrong. She associates two distinct smells with the facility owned by Calgary-based Secure Waste Infrastructure Corp.

“One is like a burnt chemical and then one is like a sour, noxious smell,” Delamont says. “When the burnt smell is in the air, it doesn’t make your eyes water, but it kind of sticks in your mucous membranes and kind of irritates your throat.”

The facility began operating in 2010, the same year Delamont and her husband moved to their home just outside of Dawson Creek. Secure receives waste produced by the oil and gas industry, including contaminated water, drilling by-products and industrial sludge. The facility is licensed by B.C.’s Ministry of Environment and Parks and the BC Energy Regulator to handle a variety of hazardous waste products. Some waste — including contaminated water — is treated on site before being injected into underground wells. Other materials are sent for disposal at different facilities.

Before construction began, nearby residents say Secure told them smells from the facility wouldn’t be a problem; they’d build a “state of the art vapour collection and recovery system to ensure no fugitive emissions and prevent odours.” A letter Armstrong received from the company in May 2009 states the facility would use the collection and recovery system when receiving “sour liquid loads” — an industry term for liquid waste containing high levels of toxic chemicals. Secure’s letter specifically mentions hydrogen sulfide, a flammable and highly toxic gas that typically smells like rotten eggs.

Armstrong vividly remembers sitting down at his kitchen table with a representative from Secure while the facility was still in the planning stage.

“My concern was offsite odours and they said there would not be any,” he recalls. “And we have found out otherwise.”

Over the years, Armstrong and Delamont say they and their family members have made hundreds of calls to Secure, the Environment Ministry and the energy regulator to report strong chemical smells on their properties. Both say those smells only appear when the wind is blowing from the waste facility toward their homes.

After years of raising concerns, they are frustrated.

“We still don’t know what it’s from,” Delamont says. “We’ve never gotten an answer as to why you smell the smells, what the smells are from and how toxic or noxious they are over the long term or short term.”

After attempts to reach the company by phone went unanswered, The Narwhal sent detailed questions about Delamont and Armstrong’s concerns to Secure via the company’s online contact form and by email. In an emailed response, Secure said it “takes community concerns seriously and works closely” with provincial regulators. The BC Energy Regulator conducted 33 inspections of the facility in 2025, according to the company, and found no compliance issues.

“When concerns are raised, we investigate them and continue working with regulators and nearby residents to address them,” the company said.

In the Peace, oil and gas is ‘a fact of life’ but companies need to be good neighbours

You don’t have to drive far outside the town of Dawson Creek to enter farming country. Last August, combines churned across golden fields, kicking up dust and pulling in cereal crops. The southern slice of British Columbia’s Peace region — named for the Peace River that flows from the Rocky Mountains across the northern prairie and into Alberta — produces the majority of the province’s canola and grain crops. Almost one-third of all the farmland in the province is located in the Peace, where cattle and forage crops are also big business.

Armstrong is one of those farmers. He bought the property just outside of Dawson Creek in 1980 and moved up from the Fraser Valley in 1985 to begin building a hay farming operation from scratch. These days, he sells hay to customers from Alaska to Vancouver Island.

But farming isn’t the only big business in the area. Sprawling summer fields dotted with hay bales and buttressed by grain silos are also criss-crossed by pipelines and studded with well pads serving the oil and gas industry. Tanker trucks regularly traverse the highways that snake past sprawling gas plants with flame-tipped flares and lights that conjure the impression of a city skyline.

The Peace region is home to all of B.C.’s 4,700 active well sites. To receive and process waste products from the industry, the region also hosts 63 active disposal stations permitted by the BC Energy Regulator. Secure operates nine disposal stations in the Peace and another nine facilities permitted by the regulator.

The oil and gas industry and a love for rural life are what brought Delamont to the Peace. Her husband works in the industry and they live on a seven-acre property. She works as a chef at a local seniors’ home and spends much of her free time with her horses.

For many residents of the Peace, rural life and the oil and gas industry coexist quite well.

“It’s just part of living up here,” Delamont says. “Oil and gas is lots of times in your backyard.”

Well drilling can be a noisy business for nearby neighbours, with large vehicles coming and going, creating noise and dust. But once the drilling work is done, “it becomes just a quiet, small square, basically,” Delamont explains.

When issues do arise, she and Armstrong have both found the companies operating nearby wells are usually responsive to complaints.

“They’ve had a few flub-ups, but they deal with it right away,” Armstrong says. “They come and apologize and ask if there’s anything they can do and it usually doesn’t happen again.”

At first, the waste disposal facility operated by Secure seemed like just another aspect of the industry they were used to living with.

“It just didn’t seem like it was going to be that big of a problem,” Delamont says.

Authorities have made ‘feeble attempts’ to address residents’ concerns

When Secure’s waste disposal facility first opened its gate, it was a bright and noisy neighbour but not an especially bothersome one. Vacuum trucks would drive up — sometimes so many they would form a line stretching back to the road — pump out their loads of wastewater and leave. Dust, vehicle noise and the facility’s round-the-clock floodlights were a manageable annoyance.

In 2011, the BC Energy Regulator granted Secure a “major facility expansion,” allowing the company to increase the number of tanks used to store waste products and bring in new equipment to treat waste. The expansion also allowed the facility to build a flare stack, a vertical pipe system used to burn off waste gas. According to the BC Energy Regulator, residents within about three kilometres of the facility were notified of the change.

Odours became an issue a couple of years after the waste disposal facility started operating, according to Delamont and Armstrong. They say calls to Secure haven’t always yielded much of a response.

“Occasionally, Secure will say they are having something going on and that they will remedy it,” Delamont says. “It’ll get better for periods of time, but then the smells come back.” Secure did not directly respond to a question about its response to residents’ concerns.

When calls to the company failed to fix the issue, residents have called the BC Energy Regulator or the Ministry of Environment. But often, odours waft away or the wind direction changes, meaning incidents are over by the time inspectors arrive, residents say.

“We have had a couple of times where [a BC Energy Regulator employee] came out and went, ‘Yep, we can smell it.’ But then we still haven’t heard, what was that that we smelled?” Delamont says.

Armstrong’s calls to the regulators ebb and flow. Sometimes, he calls again and again. Others, the lacklustre or non-existent response gets him so frustrated he stops reporting the incidents at all.

Both he and Delamont have been left feeling that neither the ministry nor the regulator have much ability or interest in enforcing the rules they oversee.

“I get the impression of feeble attempts,” Armstrong says. 

In an email, the ministry reported receiving a total of 36 complaints about Secure’s waste disposal facility since 2017. The BC Energy Regulator says it “has taken sustained and escalating action to manage odour complaints associated with” the facility, including increasing the number of inspections and, in 2024, ordering Secure to identify and mitigate odours associated with its operations. According to the regulator, the company found multiple potential odour sources at its site, including from solid waste, processing and ventilation equipment, and trucks offloading waste products. In an emailed response to The Narwhal, the regulator said Secure’s report in response to the order confirmed “existing engineered and administrative controls are in place” and that the company had taken additional steps to mitigate odours. 

“There’s waste in every industry but how we deal with it is important,” Delamont says. “We like to say that Canadian energy is the cleanest and we have lots of regulations, but then you have a waste facility that seems to not be as regulated as you would expect.”

‘If you’re not being penalized for not following regulations, are you going to change?’

In June 2024, there was an explosion at the Secure facility in which two workers were injured. That October, the company was fined more than $42,000 by WorkSafe BC for failing to take precautions before proceeding with welding work near flammable chemicals. 

In December 2024, the Ministry of Environment and the BC Energy Regulator conducted a joint inspection of Secure’s waste disposal facility to determine whether Secure was complying with its permits and B.C.’s Hazardous Waste Regulation. Several Secure employees, including the facility manager, were on site.

The regulator seemed satisfied, issuing an inspection report in March 2025 that found Secure was complying with the relevant parts of the Energy Activities Act, which governs oil and gas and other energy-related industries.

The Environment Ministry on the other hand, was not as content. The same inspection led it to write a warning letter to the company outlining several compliance failures and incomplete paperwork. 

“Secure is not taking reasonable measures to identify all hazards associated with the hazardous waste” before proceeding with disposal, the Environment Ministry’s letter stated. 

The letter also noted the facility did not have an approved spill containment system or contingency plan and it was unclear if the plan for how to safely close the facility had been approved.

The facility’s groundwater monitoring program “fails to detect potential impacts to groundwater,” according to the letter, which notes issues dating back to 2011. Despite recommendations from the ministry, “Secure has not proposed an alternative program that determines if the groundwater has been affected by leakage or leachate,” putting it out of compliance with the Hazardous Waste Regulation. Since 2020, the facility’s annual reports have stated groundwater monitoring was not done because the wells it used to collect samples were dry, according to the ministry.

Documents show on two occasions, the Secure facility accepted tens of thousands of litres more toxic waste than its licence allowed — more than 50 times the 500-litre maximum. Secure did not respond to a question about these occurrences.

Another item on the warning letter raised questions about whether the company was complying with rules regarding emissions. Secure had decommissioned two pieces of equipment it was permitted to use to treat waste and installed two new boilers not authorized under its permit. The letter says ministry staff could not determine whether the new equipment complied with emissions regulations and directed the company to check and confirm.

The ministry did not issue a fine or other penalty for the equipment lacking permits. 

One year later, it’s unclear what steps the company has taken to bring its facility into compliance with provincial laws and regulations and clear up the murky paperwork. The company did not respond to questions about its response to the warning letter.

“Secure was instructed to verify their permit aligns with Hazardous Waste Regulation emission specifications,” the Environment Ministry said in a statement to The Narwhal. Because of last year’s findings, the facility “will be prioritized for reinspection in the next fiscal year.”

Armstrong can’t understand why provincial authorities have not taken more action to ensure a facility handling toxic waste is complying with all requirements under the law.

“If you’re not being penalized for not following regulations, are you going to change?”

Politicians say there’s no evidence anything is wrong with Secure’s operations

Disappointed and frustrated with the response from regulatory authorities and the company, Delamont, Armstrong and some of their neighbours have contacted their elected representatives about their concerns.

Local MLA Larry Neufeld is the BC Conservative Party’s critic for oil, gas and liquefied natural gas (LNG) and worked in the industry for decades. 

“I have met with the company on numerous occasions, I’ve met with the landowners on numerous occasions and I know that there are significant mitigation efforts and measures in place,” he says. “That being said, I’m not discounting the concerns from the landowners.”

Neufeld called the situation “very unfortunate,” adding that — like Armstrong and Delamont — he has found most companies working in the Peace region’s oil and gas sector are responsive to residents’ concerns.

In its email to The Narwhal, Secure included documents outlining actions “to mitigate odour concerns” at the facility, such as installing additional equipment, filters and deodorizing materials. On June 1, 2025, the company said it installed new infrastructure to capture vapour from part of its site and send it to a unit designed to neutralize odours. After receiving an odour complaint in October 2025, the company said it investigated and concluded the smell was related to a product being used to clean concrete at the site because that work was being done at the time the complaint was made. “Secure immediately acted and switched suppliers of the degreaser to a less odourous product,” the company wrote.

Secure’s efforts to address residents’ concerns also included offering to install an air-quality monitor on Delamont’s property to measure methane, hydrogen sulfide, volatile organic compounds, wind direction and temperature, Neufeld noted — an offer her household declined.Armstrong did accept an air-quality monitor from the company several years ago. He periodically checks the data collected online and doesn’t think it’s been working properly.

“It was not picking up anything other than wind direction,” he told The Narwhal. “The sensors for picking up carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide were just flat lines, so I knew they weren’t working.”

Part of the problem, he says, is that it isn’t maintained. After Secure installed it about six years ago, he does not recall it being checked by the company until earlier this year.

“I have worked in the oil field myself and worn personal air monitors and they have to be calibrated and bump-checked every day,” Armstrong says. 

The company did not respond to questions about Armstrong’s concerns about the air quality monitor on his property, but did say that air quality testing conducted by a third party at the facility found concentrations of volatile organic compounds, benzene and hydrogen sulphide were “below applicable regulatory and health-based guidelines.”

Armstrong says he appreciates that Neufeld will listen, even if the conversations have yet to result in much action. He’s less appreciative of the way Energy Minister Adrian Dix responded to a letter he, Delamont and several of their neighbours sent late last year.Dix’s letter acknowledges residents’ concerns, which the minister said he discussed with Neufeld in early December 2025. It also outlines the BC Energy Regulator’s “comprehensive compliance approach” to the facility, which the letter says includes enhanced weekly inspections focused “specifically on odour-related concerns.”

“The province remains committed to ensuring that industrial activity does not compromise public health or rural livelihoods,” Dix wrote. “We will continue working in close collaboration with the BC Energy Regulator to maintain robust oversight and ensure ongoing regulatory compliance.”

“It was a political response, in my opinion — didn’t really say much,” Armstrong says.

The minister’s letter was copied to the regulator’s chief executive officer and commissioner Michelle Carr, with directions to respond to specific issues outlined in the letter from residents. 

“When you’re concerned about something and everybody else around you seems to be like, ‘Well, no, it’s not that big of a deal,’ that causes undue stress,” Delamont says.

‘I don’t know where I would go’

After years of calls and letters, Delamont and Armstrong want B.C. authorities to answer one big question about Secure’s waste disposal operation: What are we smelling?

“It’s frustrating not knowing what’s in those emissions,” Armstrong agrees. “If it gives you a wicked headache, it can’t be good for you, in my opinion.”

While neither has been told to evacuate as a result of Secure’s operations, both Delamont and Armstrong say their families have chosen to leave their homes on occasions where the smells have been especially intense. Both worry about the effect the odours — and whatever chemicals or chemical reactions cause them — may be having on their horses and other animals, which aren’t easy to move.

After receiving an initial response from Secure, The Narwhal followed up with detailed questions, including about what it is that the residents are smelling. Secure did not respond with this information.

“Secure remains committed to responsible operations and to working constructively with regulators and community members regarding the ongoing operation of the facility,” a representative from the company said via email. 

Armstrong has considered leaving the home and business he built from the ground up. “It’s crossed my mind, but the thought of starting over … I don’t know where I would go,” he says. “But you wonder what your health is doing too. I’m torn on that one, and it’s frustrating.”

Delamont and her husband have also considered leaving the property where they once planned to spend their retirement years. Their enjoyment of the wide-open spaces has been marred.

“We’ve thought recently about moving, trying to find somewhere away from Secure that we can relax a little bit more and not worry about our health and surroundings,” she says. “It’s supposed to be, ‘Oh, you live in the country, you get to breathe fresh air!’ Not always.” 

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Guilt, panic and hopelessness are becoming familiar emotions for farmers facing increasingly extreme weather, according to new University of Guelph research examining how climate change is affecting mental health in the agricultural community.

The findings are based on in-depth interviews with 36 Ontario farmers conducted by Rochelle Thompson, a PhD candidate in the university’s Department of Population Medicine. Thompson spoke with farmers between March 2023 and May 2024, all of whom had experienced climate-related disasters, including prolonged droughts, disease outbreaks or damage from severe weather events.

“I heard about the overwhelming, all-encompassing nature of extreme weather crises,” Thompson said. “A lot of people don’t even know what the first step is in situations like that.”

Several farmers questioned how many climate-related shocks they could endure before continuing to farm became unrealistic, Thompson said. Beyond financial losses, many described deep emotional strain associated with responsibility for land, animals and family livelihoods.

“There’s a lot of uncertainty for people after events like these,” she said. “Some question how many extreme weather events they can withstand.”

The interviews are part of a growing body of research at the university focused on farmer well-being. Thompson’s PhD supervisor, Andria Jones, has led two national surveys over the past decade examining mental health among Canadian farmers, collecting responses from thousands of participants.

“When you look at the stressors associated with farming, many are outside a farmer’s control,” said Jones, a professor and director of well-being programming at the Ontario Veterinary College. “Climate change is yet another stressor that contributes to uncertainty, which can lead to helplessness and hopelessness.”

A national survey released in 2016 found 45 per cent of farmers reported high stress, while 58 per cent experienced anxiety and 35 per cent reported depression. Those figures worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a 2021 survey indicating that 76 per cent of respondents experienced moderate or high stress.

Jones said Thompson’s interviews add critical context to those numbers.

“You can see a bullet list of stressors, but it’s not until you hear it in someone’s words that you really understand what’s happening,” she said.

Farmers interviewed for the study described a “sinking feeling” when planning after climate disasters and anxiety about the well-being of livestock that depended on them. One participant summed up their experience simply: “For God’s sake, just rain.”

Beyond directly supporting farmers, Jones said the research also helps bridge the gap between the public and the realities of food production.

“If people don’t understand the challenges farmers are facing, how are we going to talk meaningfully about food security and food sovereignty?” she said.

Thompson hopes to publish the results of her qualitative study in 2026. Meanwhile, a third national survey of farmer mental health in Canada is set to launch in January, aiming to track how farmer well-being has changed over the past decade amid compounding pressures from climate change and the pandemic.

Researchers are also expanding their focus to equity-deserving groups within agriculture, including Black, LGBTQ+ and women farmers. Later this month, Jones and colleague Marsha Myrie will co-host a symposium for Black farmers to gather feedback, build connections and identify practical solutions.

Farmers interested in participating in future studies can register through the AJ Research Group’s website.

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Toyin Kayo-Ajayi’s favourite meal is pounded yam, with cassava and egusi — protein-rich African melon seeds, roasted in oil with spices and blended into a paste (pumpkin seeds will do if that’s all you can find). You can add turkey, chicken, fish, shrimp, kpomo (cow-skin) — any meat you want, with some broth and African spinach or amaranth — to turn it into a stew. 

Cassava and yam are central foods in his Nigerian culture and other Black cuisines across Africa, South America and India. He’s growing the tropical produce in greenhouses in Miracle Valley just outside Mission, B.C., about a 90-minute drive east from Vancouver. 

Kayo-Ajayi was told again and again that farming in Canada would be out of reach — it would be too expensive, the climate too unforgiving for the tropical crops he dreamed of growing. It wouldn’t last.

But he says enthusiasm for his five-acre farm has only grown since he got started in 2020. For five months of the year, he can grow tropical produce in greenhouses. His soil, which he makes himself, consists of clean silt, sand and goat manure. It’s working so well, he says, he is now selling it online and trying to get it stocked in stores. He’s still experimenting at a small scale, but the food he grows, like cassava and yam, he mostly supplies to the African Foods Food Bank, an organization he launched to provide healthy food to Black families.

Donating to the food bank helps more people access African produce that may be out of reach in Canada. Imported cultural food, like cassava, can face extreme mark-ups by the time they get to the grocery store. On top of rising grocery prices and systemic income inequality, those mark-ups can put these foods out of reach. “If it’s somebody that is still low-income, now, he’s struggling to afford the cultural food,” Kayo-Ajayi explains.

This summer, he plans to host people on his farm at the Kara-Kata Africa Village, where they can camp, learn about farming, share good food and enjoy music together, he says. In its fifth year, the initiative is part of his wider vision to break down barriers for Black, African and Caribbean people to get into agriculture in Canada. In 2022, he founded the Canadian Black Farmers Association, which now has over 200 members.

The farm produces an average of 4,500 pounds of produce for the food bank and 250 dozen eggs per year. To date, Kayo-Ajayi has provided agricultural mentoring to more than 500 people.

Breaking down barriers for Black farmers across Canada

Primary agriculture — meaning the work done on a farm or in greenhouses — contributes $31.7 billion to Canada’s economy annually. It employs about 223,000 people, but 40 per cent of that workforce could retire by 2033. 

Just under five per cent of those farmers are Black, and Kayo-Ajayi sees huge opportunity to increase that number in order to grow local economies, improve food security for Black homes, make communities more “self-reliant” food-wise and increase access to cultural foods.

Food growers are the roots of the entire agricultural sector, which generates $149.2 billion annually, or seven per cent of Canada’s gross domestic product.

While Kayo-Ajayi’s priority is getting cultural foods into Black homes at reasonable prices, he says supporting food growers stands to benefit all Canadians as the United States imposes tariffs and threatens annexation. 

“It’s something that is beneficial for our community and for Canada,” he says. “Everybody wins.”

Soil ‘the key to most of my success’

When he was about five years old in Ekiti State, Nigeria, Kayo-Ajayi’s mother would send him to visit his grandparents’ farm. “I didn’t like it,” he says. 

But that was where he learned “the most important thing in life is food.”

“I remember, we walked in the farm, they would smell the soil … They could tell you what could easily grow in that area,” he says.

He discovered planting seeds made him feel grounded. “It’s energy. It’s spiritual. It’s actually good for us,” he says.

He’s stayed in farming his whole life, and has been farming in Canada for more than 20 years, beginning shortly after he arrived in 2001 at 23 years old. Today he still owns a 500-acre sister farm in Nigeria from which he imports food into Canada as well, including about 7,000 pounds on average each year to the food bank. He’s able to grow more throughout the year, and stocks some produce in the food bank, and sells some to support his operations.

In 2011, he began what would officially become the Kara-Kata Afrobeat Society, which brings music and food to community events in order to build connections and share information about food-growing.

“When there’s music and food, you find more people in our community. And I know how to make good food,” he says.

At his B.C. farm he creates a loam soil, which supports the tropical plants that yield traditional African foods, like cassava and yam. He says it’s made all his produce grow better and easier. It’s a simple mixture — but it’s “the key to most of my success,” he says. 

“The soil is the root of everything I was able to do.”

He hopes to make it widely available for purchase across Canada, and even beyond.

But he says he’s had trouble getting it into stores. He’s reached out to retailers but it hasn’t gone anywhere.

 It can be difficult for small producers to meet retailers’ requirements and make goods at scale, and often little guidance is available.

Kayo-Ajayi wants to use proceeds from soil sales to support programming for Black farmers. In turn, he hopes those farmers will someday contribute to the food bank and build capacity in the community.

“It’s like a cycle, reinvesting back,” he says.

Cultural food can ‘create a sustainable economy in our community’

Kayo-Ajayi’s operations are all-organic, and the plants he grows work together to benefit each other. Herbs repel pests. Cassava leaves provide protein for cows. He grows sorghum, a nutritious grain that grows like grass. You can cut it three times a year, but it just grows back, rather than needing to be replanted like other crops, he says.

He’s met a fair amount of nay-sayers who doubt how successful he can be. “People think I’m crazy, but, you know, it’s good to be crazy in a good way,” he says.

He met aspiring Black farmers who found there was little support in navigating the agriculture system, and wound up giving up on farming. That’s why he created the Canadian Black Farmers Association, which provides advice but also helps members purchase land, create business plans, find funding and secure infrastructure.

Kayo-Ajayi thinks there can also still be lingering stigma around Black farmers. When he first moved to Canada, he was working on a farm close to the road, and someone walked by and asked, “Are you picking some cotton over there?” and laughed.

Those associations can be internalized among Black farmers too, he says. “It’s kind of stuck in the mind, seeing a Black person on the field … That kind of pushed most Black people away,” he says. “ ‘My ancestors were brought here, so I don’t want to bring myself here now, and now give myself up as a slave again.’ ”

Kayo-Ajayi’s vision is to highlight the empowerment that comes from growing healthy and cultural foods for one’s own community. 

“The most important thing in this life is food,” he says again. “We can use that food to create a sustainable economy in our community.”

Beyond financial and informational barriers, there are still more challenges for new food growers. Farmers rated upfront costs and climate change as their top two concerns, according to a 2024 poll commissioned by Farmers for Climate Solutions. 

Flooding and drought have caused billions in damages to farmland across Canada, and climate change also is leading to a rise in pests. 

Kayo-Ajayi says his vegetables are mostly grown in greenhouses and are drought-tolerant, and he believes they can be very adaptable to a hotter, drier climate. 

Kayo-Ajayi says he invested a lot of money personally before he started getting funding. “You have to prove that you can do something before you can get support,” he says. 

Since then, the Canadian Black Farmers Association has received funding from organizations like Agriculture Canada, the Vancouver Foundation and the Supporting Black Canadian Communities Initiative. But he says he needs a lot more funding to get the farm going at a bigger scale and get to the point of selling soil.

“This is my passion,” Kayo-Ajayi says. “To me, somebody has to do it. It costs a lot, but guess what? The reason why you have a little is to be able to use the resources you have to make a difference in somebody’s life. To me, investing in another human being is my best investment, and I’m doing it this way.”

Updated on Feb. 18, at 1:50 p.m PT: A previous version of this story stated the farm produces an average of 250 eggs per year. The story has been corrected to state the farm produces an average of 250 dozen eggs per year.

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Bill Prybylski has been farming in southeast Saskatchewan for more than 40 years, but last year he did something he never thought possible. 

“We grew roughly 75 bushels an acre of wheat on three inches of rain,” he says, noting that rainfall was far below average. “That shouldn’t happen.” 

When he told his 96-year-old mother, she nearly fell off her chair — and for good reason. Not long ago, wheat in Saskatchewan would have required far more moisture, delivered at just the right moments, to achieve such high yields and quality. 

Today, that math has changed. New farming practices and improved wheat varieties allow farmers to produce more with less, even under tough conditions. Prybylski credits one factor above all for making that yield possible: applied farm research, the real-life testing of new farming practices and products conducted at federally funded research stations embedded across the country. 

That research, he says, gave him the confidence to adopt new practices related to seeding or fertilizer application techniques that improved efficiency, cut input costs (like fertilizer or herbicides) and helped him manage risk in a dry year. In his case, much of that information came from the research farm at Indian Head, Sask., about an hour and a half drive from his farm near Willowbrook, Sask.  

Which is why Prybylski calls the announcement late last month that Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada will close seven agricultural research sites — including the one at Indian Head — a “head-scratcher.”

Research farms have long been a place to develop and test new varieties of crops and conduct agriculture research. “We’ve developed some of the highest-quality bread wheat and durum wheat varieties and we’re known for growing the best wheat in the world,” Jocelyn Velestuk, a Saskatchewan farmer and chair of SaskWheat, a farm commission that invests in research and market development, says. The stakes are high: Canada exports roughly 25 million tonnes of wheat each year, worth an estimated $11.5 billion, making it one of the country’s most valuable agricultural exports.  

But the federal government says cutting research farms — and more than 650 staff, roughly 12 per cent of the department’s workforce — is strategic, and will allow it to put resources where they’re most needed. “These choices position Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada to sustain strong scientific capacity, improve efficiency and concentrate resources where they will continue to generate scientific, economic and environmental benefits,” a spokesperson said in response to emailed questions from The Narwhal.

The closures affect research sites across the country, from Alberta to Nova Scotia and in between.

The impacts may extend far beyond the farm gate, says Stuart Smyth, a professor at the University of Saskatchewan and agriculture economist.  

“This is going to contribute to higher food prices for all Canadian consumers.” 

Across the Prairies — the heart of Canada’s agriculture industry — the reaction to the federal government’s cuts to research farms has been strikingly consistent. Farm groups say the sector once again feels sidelined, far removed from federal decision-making in Ottawa. 

Prybylski is also a board member with the advocacy group Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan, and says the lack of warning was as frustrating as the decision itself — and, unfortunately, a familiar experience. 

“There have been several cases in the past where decisions have been made, and then we find out about them and start looking into the ramifications and start pushing back, and then the government takes a second look at it.” Given that they’ve walked things back before, such as announced changes to federal farm business management programs, he wonders why they wouldn’t learn from that and consult this time.

“That’s probably the most disappointing part — there was no forewarning and no consultation,” he says.

Fast cuts, slow consequences

For Velestuk, the news was also surprising.  

“We didn’t know there would be direct cuts at research stations,” she says. “If we’d been told this was coming, we would have hoped to prepare differently.” 

Velestuk says that while the effects of the cuts may not be immediately visible, the long-term consequences could be significant — particularly for the competitiveness of Canada’s grain sector. Beyond limiting applied research, she says the cuts reduce capacity for developing new crop varieties, a cornerstone of the wheat industry.

Several of the sites slated for closure or wind-down — including facilities in Lacombe, Alta., Guelph, Ont., and Quebec City — have historically housed crop science and breeding teams specializing in variety development and related research. 

Along with other Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada breeding programs, these centres have spent decades developing many of the crop varieties most widely grown by Canadian farmers today, and now in demand from buyers around the world. 

“We need both quality and yield from our wheat grown in the Prairies in order to be able to market our grain to different countries and remain viable on our farms.”

Beyond variety development, Velestuk says applied research carried out at regional research stations plays a critical role for farmers on the ground. 

“One of the biggest strengths of having research stations spread across the Prairies was that research didn’t happen in just one set of conditions. Wheat breeding, other crop breeding and agronomy trials were tested across a wide range of ecozones, allowing researchers to see what actually worked, where and under which conditions,” she says. 

“That kind of regional testing is critical when you’re dealing with challenges like drought, heat or disease — because a practice or crop variety that works in one area may not work the same way in another.”

The impact of this research is measurable. According to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, many of today’s most common — and valuable — farming practices, including direct seeding and no-till systems, were tested, proven and adapted locally through applied research and extension. These practices are largely credited with being beneficial to farms economically, but also reducing greenhouse gas emissions per bushel and improving the quality of Canadian farmland soils.

Climate goals, cut short?

For many in the agriculture sector, one of the most puzzling aspects of the announcement is how sharply it appears to conflict with the federal government’s stated climate priorities. In recent years, Ottawa has emphasized investments in climate-smart agriculture, precision tools and sustainable production practices — many of which rely directly on applied research, conducted on now-closed research farms, to help farmers reduce emissions while remaining productive.

“On one hand, they’re saying we need to improve our environmental footprint, we need to be more conscientious of things that we do that affect the environment,” Prybylski says. “But we can’t do that if we don’t have the research to show us what we need to do better … where we can make improvements that are beneficial to the environment, to the public good.”

Smyth says the cuts send a troubling signal about agriculture’s role in Canada’s long-term climate strategy — particularly at a time when innovation is increasingly critical.  

“The message I took from last week’s announcement is that the federal government is not interested in having agriculture contribute to mitigating climate change,” he says. Smyth notes that advances allowing crops and livestock to produce more with fewer greenhouse gas emissions — through improved genetics, resilience and efficiency — are among the most practical tools available to help agriculture adapt to climate pressures while meeting emissions targets. Research has made crop varieties better able to withstand pressures from extreme weather and changing environments, and still turn a profit for farmers.

Smyth says the decision is especially difficult to understand given the strong return on investment historically delivered by agricultural research, not only for farmers but for Canadians more broadly.  

“What it says to me is that science and empirical evidence on returns to investment don’t mean anything. These decisions were entirely political.”

Federal government stands by its decision

In response to the backlash, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada spokesperson Cameron Newbigging said the cuts were part of a broader effort to reduce costs and refocus on core responsibilities. The department aims to do all of this without compromising the quality or scope of federally funded agricultural research.  

“Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s decisions were guided by a careful review of the Department’s science activities, sector priorities, capacity and infrastructure,” Newbigging said in an emailed response to questions from The Narwhal, adding that the department will continue to operate 17 research centres across Canada. 

“We considered alignment with strategic priorities, capacity in other places, opportunities to strengthen support for the agriculture sector and ways to deliver science more efficiently while maintaining a presence in every province.”

Newbigging also reiterated the department’s commitment to remaining Canada’s largest agricultural research organization.  

“[Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada] will continue to advance high-impact science across key areas, including crop and horticultural production, animal production, food processing, biodiversity and environmental sustainability to address emerging priorities and build a competitive and innovative sector.”

Despite those assurances, many in the industry remain unconvinced the decision makes sense right now, particularly as farmers face growing economic, environmental and climate-related pressures — and continue to rely heavily on field-level, region-specific research. 

Velestuk says federal research and wheat-breeding programs “ultimately affects the sustainability of my farm and farms across Canada.” 

For Prybylski, who is in the process of transitioning his family farm to his son, daughter and two nephews, the concern is what these decisions mean over the long term.  

“There’s going to be some budget savings, no question about it, but the results of these decisions are going to be felt for generations. Once the cuts are made, it’s going to be really, really hard to bring this research back online.”

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The head of a national network that tracks the spread of wildlife diseases says a persistent funding shortfall is undermining Canada’s ability to detect and respond to emerging threats to biodiversity, agriculture and human health.

Damien Joly is the chief executive officer of the Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative, a network of Canada’s five veterinary schools and the B.C. government’s Animal Health Centre. The cooperative works with federal, provincial and territorial governments to monitor wildlife diseases across the country.

In an interview with The Narwhal, Joly said the organization is “cash strapped across the board.”

“We do not have the resources we need to effectively monitor these diseases,” he said.

That warning comes as Canada grapples with the spread of highly transmissible diseases, such as chronic wasting disease, a fatal infection that afflicts deer, moose, elk and other cervids. At the same time, avian influenza, which has caused huge die-offs of wild birds and triggered mass culls at hundreds of infected poultry farms across the country, continues to spread. Hundreds of dead wild birds found in southern Manitoba in recent months have been linked to bird flu, as have the deaths of wild birds in Ontario. 

In Atlantic Canada, Joly said the cooperative is scraping together whatever funding it can find to continue monitoring the spread of avian flu, keeping a particular eye out for mutations in the virus.

“We’re seeing massive die-offs in Europe and it’s not going to be long before that particular strain finds its way over the Atlantic into Canada,” Joly said. 

Environment and Climate Change Canada is the cooperative’s primary funder, contributing almost $1.2 million in 2024-25. Funding from other federal agencies and departments, as well as provincial and territorial governments, brought the cooperative’s total budget to $3.5 million for that fiscal year, according to its annual report.

While Joly said the cooperative’s partners in government work hard to secure funding for wildlife disease monitoring, budget shortfalls remain a persistent problem.

“Every region is in a deficit situation,” Joly said. The result is the cooperative is being forced to dip into its rainy-day funds to cover costs.

Now he’s calling for federal, provincial and territorial governments to renew their commitment to implementing the Pan-Canadian Approach to Wildlife Health strategy, which most environment ministers endorsed in 2018 at an intergovernmental conference.

Joly estimates at least $10 million a year is needed to implement that strategy, half for the cooperative and the rest to be shared among provincial and territorial governments to strengthen wildlife disease monitoring and response.

At a minimum, Joly said more streamlined and consistent funding would give the cooperative and its staff more stability. Currently, he said, he’s managing reporting for more than 20 different funding pots for the cooperative’s national office alone.

In a statement to The Narwhal, Keean Nembhard, a press secretary for Julie Dabrusin, minister of environment, climate change and nature, said the federal government remains committed to conservation, addressing key threats to biodiversity and the principles of the Pan-Canadian Approach to Wildlife Health. But, he said, implementing that approach would require coordinated efforts and funding from federal, provincial and territorial governments.

Nembhard said Environment and Climate Change Canada has committed to providing the cooperative almost $360,000 in core funding for another two fiscal years to support monitoring and diagnostics of wildlife pathogens. But that’s only a fraction of the funding the cooperative needs, meaning the organization is still being left to juggle a piecemeal funding model.

Wildlife disease tracking is key to defending against emerging threats 

For three decades, the Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative has been tracking the causes of death for wild animals assessed by the network’s pathologists. That record gives researchers a clear picture of the pathogens and diseases that spread among wildlife and how deadly they usually are.

Having a baseline is crucial for being able to detect and respond to emerging threats to biodiversity quickly, Joly said. 

Take chronic wasting disease, which was first detected in Canada on a Saskatchewan elk farm in 1996. Since then, the disease has spread through wild populations of deer, elk and other cervids. With cases now being detected in British Columbia, Joly said the risks to caribou are particularly scary.

“This is a species that’s in trouble already,” he said. 

Researchers knew the disease was a looming threat for B.C. long before the first case was detected in the province in 2024, according to Kaylee Byers, an assistant professor in the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia.

As monitoring showed the disease had spread to Alberta and neighbouring regions in the United States, the risk that it would move into B.C. grew.

Knowing where and how a disease is spreading can give governments and researchers a chance to target their response, Byers said. That could mean, for instance, increasing sample collection and testing in high-risk areas or putting in place new protocols for transporting animal parts. 

Byers, who is also the deputy director of the B.C. arm of the Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative, said wildlife disease monitoring today largely relies on the public to report sick, injured or dead animals. 

“What’s really challenging about that, is it’s not the full picture,” she said, adding that more funding could allow for expanded monitoring.

“Take something like avian influenza,” she said. Wild birds land in plenty of remote wetlands where there’s potential for the virus to spill over into other animal populations. But, if people aren’t frequenting these areas, that spread might not be captured by current monitoring programs, she warned. 

Wildlife diseases can threaten human health, livestock and international trade

Understanding the pathogens and diseases spreading among wildlife is important for people as well. These diseases can threaten the wildlife populations hunters rely on for food. They can pass to and spread rapidly among livestock, putting animal welfare in jeopardy and farmers’ livelihoods at risk. And they can threaten our own human health.

Many of the diseases that affect people today are zoonotic, meaning they’re caused by germs that can spread between animals and people. 

Scientists have worried for years about the potential for bird flu to cause a human pandemic. While it has wreaked havoc around the world in recent years, it hasn’t caused widespread disease in people so far. There have been dozens of human cases in the U.S. since 2024, mostly among workers exposed to the virus at infected poultry and dairy operations. In Canada, a teenager was infected with a severe case of the virus in late 2024. Advanced testing showed the closest match for the virus she contracted was found in wild birds in the Fraser Valley. The teen spent almost two months in hospital before she was released. 

Though human cases remain rare, bird flu has taken a significant toll on poultry farmers across the country. Since 2021, there have been outbreaks at 591 poultry farms in Canada. Millions of farmed birds have been culled as a result.

As a member of the World Organisation for Animal Health, Canada is obligated to monitor and report on certain diseases, including avian flu, that spread not just among livestock but also wildlife.

“Identifying disease risks in wildlife early ensures timely intervention strategies, reduces the risk of disease spread to other animals or people (so-called spillovers) and reduces the impacts on wildlife themselves and on biodiversity and ecosystems,” Claire Cayol, the organization’s project manager for wildlife health information systems, said in a statement to The Narwhal.

Founded in 1924, the international organization sets standards related to animal health, including for surveillance of certain wildlife diseases, that allow for global trade of animals and animal products.

What that means, Joly said, is the work the Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative does is also vital to Canada’s ability to trade beef, poultry and other food products. 

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