With a newly formed majority Liberal government, Keystone Agricultural Producers president Dan Mazier says he looks forward to a new approach on discussion about agriculture policy and framework — in particular, farm labour and its shortages across Canada. Right now, Canada is facing workforce issues in many sectors of agriculture, with — for example — over 1,000 vacant jobs in the meat-processing sector alone.

Mazier says he's glad the Liberals have said they'll look at the Canadian Agriculture Human Resource Council's plan for addressing labour in agriculture.

"You know, that's huge for us," he says, "There's a plan out there, someone has thought about it, and if they follow that, we should be in very good shape for labour in agriculture. They get it, and they get the way we want to approach it, so that's good."

Leading up to the election, Liberals expressed concern about issues such as farm income safety nets, research, and transportation. Mazier says overall he's excited to see what new blood in office will bring for Canadian agriculture, especially for federal agriculture programs, with the next agreement coming up in two years.

"We're really at a crossroads with these programs," he says, mentioning AgriStability or AgriInvest. "What do we need for 2015 and moving forward to 2017 when these agreement expire and start again? To me, when you get... new energy into the system, I'm really looking forward to those discussions and how do we move our whole industry forward."

Mazier says regardless of which party is in power, KAP can and will work with anyone, under the guidance of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture.