DELHI, Ont. - Ottawa is giving tobacco farmers more than $300 million in a long-awaited effort to help them give it up the practice for good, Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz said Friday.
The money is to finance a federal exit strategy to help farmers find new crops and get out of the tobacco industry altogether, said Immigration and Citizenship Minister Diane Finley, who represents the tobacco-rich riding of Haldimand-Norfolk.
"Tobacco producers and their families will be able to bring closure to what has been a very stressful time," Finley said in a statement.
"This program is available to help producers exit the industry, transition to other crops, or find new opportunities outside agriculture."
The announcement was made in Delhi, Ont., a farming town in the heart of Ontario's so-called tobacco belt -- a fertile band of farmland dotted by fields of squat green tobacco plants and the drying sheds used to dry and cure the leaves.
Ritz says the money will come from the fine of more than $1 billion levied by an Ontario judge Thursday against two of Canada's largest tobacco companies.
Some $286 million is being provided for the Tobacco Transition Program, plus $15 million for community development initiatives "to help communities transition to a non-tobacco-based economy."
Imperial Tobacco and Rothman's Benson & Hedges were hit with the staggering fine -- the largest of its kind in Canadian history -- after the companies pleaded guilty to charges related to cross-border cigarette smuggling in the 1990s.
Not all the farmers at Friday's event were thrilled with the news; tobacco growers have been seeking close to $1 billion to help them establish alternative crops.
