Tobacco wifes form new group

By Jeff Helsdon

Staff Writer


There are only two membership requirements for a new group attempting to put a face on the strife facing Ontario tobacco families.

Members, of course, need to be from tobacco-farming families. The second requirement is they need to be female.

Tobacco Women of Ontario (TWO) isn’t another splinter group with its own political agenda. Its mission is actually to see the tobacco community united for the single purpose of seeing an exit package become a reality.

In fact, group founder Cindy Pond said there are women on the committee whose families are involved with the Ontario Flue-Cured Tobacco Growers’ Marketing Board, Tobacco Farmers in Canada and New Tobacco Alliance Committee.

“The main consensus we can agree on is we need compensation for quota now,” she said. “What they (farmers) do after that is their own businesses.

“If we talk to our husbands, talk to our sons and stand united, maybe we can all get on the same page and can show the government we’re not going anywhere and we need to get something done.”

Pond said there have been suicides in the community, children of tobacco farmers on anti-depressants and people are having financial troubles.

One of TWO’s first initiatives was traveling to Ottawa when the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food met recently to consider a motion for an immediate tobacco buyout prior to a plan being put in place. Pond said they didn’t speak during the committee meeting, but did talk to individual MPs afterwards.

Their purpose wasn’t to be another voice representing tobacco farmers, but to bring a human perspective to the problem and stress help is needed this summer. They didn’t even bring up price or attempt to negotiate. Pond said group members spent about 40 minutes talking to Conservative MP Larry Miller (Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound) after the meeting.

“He seemed like he was quite emotional about it,” Pond said.

A few of the group’s members were told they could meet for 15 minutes with Haldimand-Norfolk MP and Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Diane Finley’s senior policy advisor Jim Miller. Pond said the meeting lasted closer to 90 minutes and they seemed to get their points across.

“Something needs to be done,” she said. “People are losing their farms. One lady was saying she was close to losing the farm her grandfather was born on.”

Finley said it’s great TWO is trying to unite farmers, saying that’s something she has encouraged for several years.

Still, she was cautious about the creation of another group representing tobacco farmers.

“One of the challenges right now is there’s four different groups presenting four different positions,” she said. “The challenge is reconciling the needs of those who are organized as well as those who aren’t organized such as the farmers who want to continue to grow.”

She would like to meet with TWO members, and hopes it is possible this summer.

The 16 ladies who made the bus trip to Ottawa didn’t have sponsorship from the board to cover costs. There is no cost to join the group, but donations are accepted.

“This is for families, it’s not for people’s personal agendas,” Pond said. “I would love more than anything to talk about something else at my kitchen table at night. It just consumes our lives.”


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I have no idea where finley keeps coming up with tobacco farmers not being united, every group I know of stands for the samething, a buyout, which group is it that she says wants to keep growing? Does she just make this crap up or what?

Anyways, glad to see these women formng a group, i think its about time the government and everyone else see's its not just the farmer struggling, its also their wifes and kids.