Rural leaders scoured documents filed with last week’s Manitoba budget looking for signs of provincial help for farmers in the southwestern flood area.
They found none.
As interest groups jockeyed for position in front of television cameras in the rotunda of the Manitoba Legislature, Chris Hamblin took advantage of a quiet corner to ask the agriculture minister about flood aid.
While she is “somewhat sympathetic” to Rosann Wowchuk’s struggle to find federal funds for farmers, Hamblin said the province should go ahead with its own program.
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The provincial government should at least top up its funding to the Agricultural Income Disaster Assistance program to cover negative margins, she said.
That would help some farmers in southwestern Manitoba who are struggling to make ends meet, said Hamblin, vice-president of Keystone Agricultural Producers.
“The producers are hurting,” she said. “Something needs to be done and if the feds aren’t going to do it, where else do we turn?”
Wayne Motheral, president of the Association of Manitoba Municipalities, agreed the province should cough up what it can.
“Hey, it’s their economy, it’s the province’s economy.”
Jack Penner, Conservative agriculture critic, said Wowchuk’s government should put up its money and continue to fight for the federal portion as long as it takes.
Wowchuk defended the provincial government. She said Manitoba taxpayers are left on the hook for $20 million of an emergency program that helped farmers who couldn’t get on their land last spring.
The province also cost-shared AIDA and the Canada-Manitoba Adjustment program.
A “good portion” of AIDA spending will help farmers in southwestern Manitoba, she said.
The provincial government can’t set a precedent by helping farmers through a disaster without help from the federal government, she added.