When federal and provincial agriculture ministers sit down in Victoria next month to discuss farm safety nets, the talk will be more about future programs than the current emergency farm aid.
By the Feb. 23-24 meeting, they hope to have worked out the details of how to spend the more than $1 billion promised for this year and next.
“We may use the Victoria meeting to officially sign the agreement but details should be finished by then,” senior Agriculture Canada official Doug Hedley said in an interview last week. “That will not be the centrepiece.”
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Instead, it will be a meeting to focus ministers’ attention on details of the long-term safety net package that will take effect for the year 2000 and beyond.
In July, when they meet in Prince Albert, Sask., they are supposed to sign a new long-term agreement about farm protection programs.
Part of the debate is whether a new permanent federal-provincial national income disaster program should be designed to supplement crop insurance and the Net Income Stabilization Accounts.
“The real issue in the Victoria meeting is how do we approach safety nets for the longer run because by July of this year, we want to be in a position to finalize that stuff,” said Hedley. “If that is the timetable, we really have to start moving ministers along.”
He said details of this winter’s aid package, with work sheets and application forms to help farmers figure out their eligibility, will be mailed to farmers Feb. 28, as well as posted on Agriculture Canada’s internet website.
Once income tax forms are completed and filed, federal officials will begin to process them. Ottawa expects the first cheques will be sent to the early filers by June.
