The Ottawa Valley Farm Show – By Shirley Dolan

Shirley Dolan

As we have been doing for many years, the Ontario Landowners Association was an exhibitor at the Ottawa Valley Farm Show held at the EY Centre in Ottawa on March 12-14. We had a new booth this year and we were concerned that the new location might not work so well for us. We needn’t have worried – we had about the same number of people visit us as in previous years.

As usual, Wednesday was the busiest day with crowded aisles from about 10 AM to around 4 PM. Luckily, we had a good crew of volunteers to distribute literature and answer questions about our two most prominent themes: The OSPCA Act charter challenge and Conservation Authorities.

Led by Tom Black, Past President of the OLA, several of our volunteers, armed with a letter explaining why we need to keep the pressure on for better animal care legislation in Ontario, visited pretty much all the exhibitors at the show.  Explaining why we need better legislation (to protect animal agriculture) is not always an easy story to tell. It takes time and a lot of energy.

Although we had many visitors to our booth, we noticed that not as many people are complaining about government abuse.  Could it be the new provincial government, or could it be that our message is getting through to municipalities to change the tone and show respect for private property?  We hope it’s a bit of both.

Thanks to all the volunteers who staffed our booth over the three days. Special thanks to Duaine McKinley and Tom Black and the set up and tear down crew for the great booth. We couldn’t have done it without you.