Sabile Trimm, SDSG’s People’s Party of Canada candidate. Glover photo

SDSG – Sabile Trimm, SDSG’s People’s Party of Canada candidate, says she wants to fight for the small farmer. “I’ve been an advocate for local food for about 15 years; that’s actually the reason I decided to run this time around,” she said. “I want to support small farmers, which there is not enough support [for]. I think that is a big problem for the environment.”

Trimm explained that, while it began as a protection for farmers, supply management has indefinitely lowered the number of dairy farmers in Canada to a shocking low.

“Surprisingly, the People’s Party is the only one that wants to phase out supply management,” she said. “The message out there to the public is that supply management protects farmers and that was the intention originally, but that’s not what’s happened. Before supply management, there were 174,000 dairy farmers in Canada, and now, there are 10,000 and it’s decreasing constantly.”

She states that while farmers are continuing down the option of “selling out,” the People’s Party of Canada is offering a chance to start over with a new beginning.

“If you’re going to sell out, you might as well sell out to the government, [the People’s Party of Canada] will buy you out and release you from your quota,” said Trimm. “And then you can just farm freely; and if we allowed that, there would be a boom to small farmers and local food.”

Another major plank in Trimm’s platform involves the economy, which is something she is extremely concerned about. She mentioned that, in the wake of another pending recession, the country will not be prepared for what could be coming.

“Paul Martin’s excellent job as finance minister, paying off debt and leaving us with a surplus, when we went into the 2008 recession, our economy was healthy and we fared very well because of that,” she said. “Recessions come and go in waves but we have another one due soon. So, right now, there are no interest rates and the economy was growing; now is the time to pay off debts, but we haven’t, we’ve just accrued more debts.”

Trimm continued to explain that, when the next recession comes our way, we’re not going to do as well as we did 11 years ago. She also mentioned that it’s odd that the other parties are offering and promising Pharmacare, which is not offered on the federal level of government, it’s offered on the provincial level.

“The NDP, the Liberals and Green Party are offering Pharmacare, which is great, but that’s a provincial jurisdiction,” she said. “So, why are they offering that at the federal level? It’s very weird.”

Another major plank in Trimm’s platform is an issue that has been a hot button topic throughout the debates; the Carbon Tax and the belief that it’s not helping improve the environment, calling it a “tax grab.”

“Compare it to putting higher taxes on cigarettes to encourage people to stop smoking,” she said. “Higher taxes on cigarettes never stopped anyone from smoking, it just made the poor poorer. That’s all it did and that’s all the Carbon Tax is going to do.”

Trimm states that she is 100 per cent in agreement that pollution needs to be reduced. She, along with the rest of her party, are in complete agreement about the instalment of an oil pipeline.

“I consider myself an environmentalist, I care very much about the environment but I’m also a realist. I don’t think you can just say, ‘no more oil,’” she said. “There is oil, so what’s the best way to deal with it?”

She mentioned that other transportation options would actually give off more carbon than the use of a pipeline.

“It’s more environmentally friendly to transport through a pipeline,” she said.

Trimm will be running alongside other SDSG candidates including Eric Duncan (Conservative), Heather Megill (Liberal), Kelsey Schmitz (NDP) and Raheem Aman (Green Party) in the coming election. You will be able to cast your vote Mon., Oct. 21.