WINNIPEG – The formula has been decided, the debate is over, and the cheques for the Crow payout are all but in the mail.
But the question of fairness in method of payment continues to be raised. At a Canadian Federation of Agriculture meeting here last week, some farm leaders from the Prairies said fallout from the debate is just beginning to hit the fan.
Owen McAuley of Keystone Agricultural Producers said the way the payment was calculated is dividing the farm community at local, provincial and regional levels.
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federal government proposed several months ago to increase the compensation rate from 80 to 90 per cent and double the maximum payment from $3 million to $6 million
“There is clearly a question of fairness and equity that CFA needs to take a bigger role in,” McAuley said, adding that while the debate is over, farmers have to reflect on the way it was handled so the same mistakes aren’t made in the future.
But Jack Wilkinson, CFA president, said the organization was asked by its members to stay out of the Crow debate. Provincial and commodity groups that belonged to CFA did their own lobbying.
Les Jacobson of KAP said there was a good reason for CFA to take the back seat in the transportation debate
Divisive issue
“It was such a divisive issue in the early days … that groups in Western Canada couldn’t even agree amongst themselves, so how was a national organization expected to have some thoughts and express some opinions?” Jacobson said.
Not only are individual farmers, groups and provinces unhappy with the results of the fractured lobby on transportation, but Wilkinson said it has implications for other CFA issues.
The money that provinces and regions successfully lobbied for “is going to come out of one place: the portfolio of dollars that Ag Canada has for programming,” he said.
“Maybe (groups) shouldn’t have told CFA to stay out of it. Maybe we should have been working here more together and putting something together so we didn’t get the fallout we’re getting,” Wilkinson said.
If there’s a lesson to be learned, Wilkinson said it’s that farmers need to stick together on future issues rather than individually lobbying in Ottawa.
