Province fighting federal strychnine decision: MLA Hunter

Posted on March 12, 2026 by Sunny South News

By Trevor Busch
Sunny South News
editor@tabertimes.com

As the region gears up for another growing season in 2026, Taber-Warner MLA Grant Hunter is cautiously optimistic as he weighs the prospects for the region.

Farmers often bank on strong precipitation levels in March and April to help maintain moisture in the soil, traditionally the period when Alberta sees its heaviest snowfalls.

“It might be a little too early to tell, because the vast majority of our precipitation comes in March and April, for the snow, and then in June for the rain,” said Hunter. “But we hope that we’ll have good, good snow and rain in those months. But I will say that we’ve had some really good indicators so far, the snow pack in the vast majority of our eastern slopes that we look at and we measure for data, it looks good. It’s very promising. It’s either normal, which is 40 to the 60th percentile, or above normal, which is 60 to the 80th percentile. So I would say, in terms of the standard deviation, it looks good, looks very promising. And I think that because we’ve moved out of El Nino and we’re moving into La Nina. And so again, we have these changes, our whole climate, everything, it all moves up and down, back and forth with these large trends. And so that’s kind of what we’re looking at.”

With the federal government recently denying Alberta and Saskatchewan’s joint emergency use request for liquid strychnine for pest control for the 2026 season, Hunter is concerned that gophers will become an increasingly annoying problem for producers this year.

“I think it’s going to be devastating. I’ve talked to some farmers that have seen some major, major problems with their crops because of their inability to manage gophers. And so I really am quite concerned about that. I know that Minister Sigurdson is still in conversations with the federal government, his counterpart on the federal government side, to try to convince them that this is not the right approach and that we need to address this issue.”

Strychnine is a restricted, highly toxic, and largely banned pesticide in Canada (all uses were banned in March 2023) but grassroots agricultural officials in the province argue that current legal alternatives (such as Rocon Rodenticide) are less effective. 

“We’re going to see an absolute scourge of gophers and pests in our fields, and we don’t want to see that,” said Hunter.

Critics of strychnine use say the poison has a high risk of non-target mortality for species that feed on ground squirrels, including coyotes, badgers and especially birds of prey like eagles, hawks and owls, while its environmental persistence means the substance can remain in carcasses, soil and water leading to secondary poisoning. 

Hunter, who also serves as Minister of Environment and Protected Areas, was reluctant to outline any changes for agriculture on the legislative front while the house is in session. 

“Not legislatively. I really can’t talk about legislation before it hits the floor, as you know. So stay tuned on that.”

Hunter is also engaged in the development of the Chin Reservoir Expansion Project for the St. Mary River Irrigation District (SMRID) involving construction of a new dam to create a larger off-stream storage area. Located approximately 30 kms east of Lethbridge and 15 kms south of Taber, the new dam is projected to be roughly 40 metres in height and will inundate 650 hectares of private land in Chin Coulee. The original dams were completed in 1955.

“But certainly when it comes to off-stream storage and the expansion of off-stream storage we’re still working on, Chin Reservoir is going to be a big, big needle mover on this in our area. I’m still trying to get some things worked out there. My department has been trying to work through an environmental impact assessment with Chin Reservoir and SMRID. So that is ongoing. I’m trying to expedite that process as quickly as possible, but it’s something that I’m still working on to make sure we get that across the finish line.”

When completed, the project is expected to increase the reservoir’s water storage capacity by 128 million cubic metres. Right now, the project is still undergoing a rigorous Environmental Impact Assessment.

Also slated for replacement as a result of the project is the original Highway 36 bridge which currently spans Chin Coulee.