TORONTO – Canada’s agriculture ministers expect June to be a red letter month in the development of the newest version of a farm safety net policy.
When federal and provincial ministers meet in Charlottetown June 28-30, they expect to amend the agricultural policy framework to allow negative margin coverage under the Canadian Agricultural Income Stabilization program and to raise the per-farm benefits cap to $3 million from the current $975,000.
Ministers also hope to approve the launch of the first annual review of the CAIS to see if farm lobby criticisms of its design are valid.
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“This will be the first year of the new CAIS program and it is important to the agricultural community that we have a good competent review panel in place and I’m confident that is going to happen,” Ontario agriculture minister Steve Peters said April 8 at the end of a federal-provincial ministers’ meeting.
In their final communiqué, ministers said last week they will agree to the mandate and structure of the annual APF review panel in June. At the closed meeting, they agreed to consult provincial farm organizations during the next two months to make sure the panel includes regional balance and adequate industry representation.
Ottawa moved closer to getting the revised APF in place last week when two more provinces – Quebec and New Brunswick – signed the amendments. It means just two more provinces must sign before the richer CAIS takes effect.
“We have now five,” federal agriculture minister Bob Speller said at a news conference after the April 8 meeting. “We need seven. A number of governments are going through their cabinets. We hope they will be in place as quickly as possible because we believe the new amendments will help many of the producers that are being adversely affected both by BSE and avian influenza.”
Some provinces, including Saskatchewan and Manitoba, have not signed because the amendments will increase the costs of the programs and they either cannot afford it or do not have cabinet approval for additional spending.
Saskatchewan minister Mark Wartman was not at the meeting because of his government’s razor-thin control of the provincial legislature and the fear that the government could fall if he was absent.
Manitoba agriculture minister Rosann Wowchuk was there and she insisted her province still is not willing to sign the amendments, negotiated last year as the federal price for getting Ontario and Prince Edward Island to sign the original APF deal.
“There are still a few provinces that are in discussions with their cabinet and the federal government with regard to the costs,” she said. “The new amendments carry additional costs. Some of us had already gone to treasury board and gotten approval for a certain level of funding. Now it’s a matter of looking at budgets and how we can afford it.”
However, she said once two more provinces sign, all provinces will have to live by the rules, including provinces that say they cannot afford their 40 percent share of the new costs.
“The agreement is that it is a national program when enough provinces sign on,” said Wowchuk.
