Overview
- Ontario introduced the Protecting Ontario’s Food Independence Act, which would let the province set limits on foreign buying of farmland.
- The bill creates the legal framework now and leaves definitions, ownership caps, and enforcement rules to future regulations.
- Agriculture Minister Trevor Jones framed the move as protecting the food supply and warned that absentee owners could bank land or grow export-only crops, and he said past purchases will stand.
- Farm groups and brokers said they were surprised and pressed for clarity on whether corporations, pension funds, leases, and existing foreign owners would be covered.
- Brokers reported little recent foreign buying in Ontario and analysts, echoed by the federal agriculture minister, pointed to local land-use and housing growth as the bigger forces converting prime farmland, even as other provinces already restrict foreign ownership.