Carleton County dairy farmer John Templeton got three phone calls from the milk committee. The first call told him to prepare for the rally. Two days before the rally he was told the rally was on. The day before the rally he was told is was cancelled. The day of the rally he was surprised to hear about it on the radio.

"We didn’t know (a rally) was on," said Alfred Vogel, dairy farmer in Martintown. "I heard about it the day before it happened."

The Dairy Farmers of Ontario decided in the end not to participate in the Dec.18 rally. However, the decision came so close to day of the event many Quebec producers felt abandoned.

The Dairy Farmers of Ontario decided "at the last minute (that) this was not the time to rally based on price," said Gord Johnston, Dairy Farmers of Ontario representative for Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Counties. He added that DFO discussed demonstrating in Ottawa Dec. 18 on the condition that DFO could cancel participation in the event.

On Dec. 13 Ontario dairy producers were offered a $2.60/hL increase although they wanted at least a$3/hL increase. Farmers had been earning on average slightly more than $60/hL of milk.

Vogel echoed the thoughts of many farmers in calling the decision a "lousy thing to do."

Quebec dairy farmer Chris Judd, president of the Pontiac County milk producers, said he didn’t know the Ontario farmers backed out until he got to the rally. "The whole thing was a bunch of misunderstandings."

Quebec farmers are mad at DFO, he said, adding that by showing division "if you want to get nothing, that’s how you do it."

As for the issue of "blending", Johnston added that the federal government didn’t have time to examine the issue since a working group hadn’t yet submitted its report on the issue. The federal government set up a working group to examine why so much American dairy products were entering Canada.