The Reform party says Ottawa was wrong to spend more than half a million dollars in farm aid funds to promote the program.
It says the object of the promotion was more to enhance the government’s image than to help farmers.
Howard Hilstrom, Reform’s agriculture critic, released figures Monday that indicated the federal government spent just more than $500,000 between Dec. 10 and July 21 to advertise the details of the Agricultural Income Disaster Assistance program and to encourage farmers to apply.
An additional $94,600 was spent on travel, meals and hospitality related to program promotion, according to figures obtained by Hilstrom’s office under access to information legislation.
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“Farmers knew about the program and were not impressed,” Hilstrom said in an interview Aug. 30. “It seems to me this was more an attempt to polish the image of the government and maybe to try to make people in the cities think that the government is doing more for farmers than they are.”
Hilstrom said the $600,000 out of the AIDA budget would have been better spent helping farmers in trouble.
“I can’t help but think this money was not properly spent,” Hilstrom said from his Manitoba riding.
During a telephone news conference from a trade meeting in Buenos Aires, Argentina, agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief defended the AIDA spending, which included four months of advertising in the farm media.
“The Reform party not too long ago was telling us that we need to get information out to farmers so they could apply and yes, we have spent some money doing that,” he said.
“We knew farmers were busy. We encouraged them to apply and we spent some money doing that.”
Hilstrom said the money was more likely an attempt at self-promotion for the beleaguered minister than promotion for an unpopular program.
