OTTAWA – Agriculture Canada and its clients could soon feel a chilly breeze from the federal government plan to slash billions of dollars from spending and thousands of public servants from the payroll.
Senior public servants are working feverishly to make plans to drastically reduce the federal presence.
Final results are expected in next February’s budget but early echoes from the exercise are expected to be felt before then.
Federal-provincial negotiations over a new system of farm income safety nets could be one of the early casualties.
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Safety net negotiators have been told the federal Liberal government will no longer be able to commit close to $800 million to the program. The federal commitment will be trimmed down.
The result likely will be increased federal-provincial tensions, a delay in working out the details of the new program and a lower level of protection for farmers once the deal is struck.
And the general level of federal service for farmers also will decline as Ottawa either cancels “non-essential” programs or tries to shuffle them off to the provinces or the private sector.
“If we come to the conclusion in any field that the province can give it (service) better than we can, they should have it,” said inter-governmental affairs Marcel MassŽ, the minister leading the program review, at a Sept. 22 news conference.
Provinces in a bind
But what if the provinces say they cannot afford to fund new programs, as they have said in agriculture for years?
“Well clearly in these cases, we have the choice of either withdrawing from a program or reducing its size,” he told a questioner. “The provinces have got the choice of either continuing the portion they had before or the absolute amount.”
Talk like that makes both farm leaders and provincial agriculture ministers nervous.
Reason for concern
“Farmers have very good reason for being concerned,” said Canadian federation of agriculture president Jack Wilkinson. “There already have been cuts. Do we get credit for that or do we just start from scratch? We are going to see a reduction in government service.”
From Regina, Saskatchewan agriculture minister Darrel Cunningham warned that federal efforts to pass program responsibilities to the provinces, without more money, will be met with resistance.
An indication that Ottawa cannot live up to the $800 million promise it made will jeopardize efforts to find a new safety net program.
Last week, federal agriculture deputy minister Ray Protti said reduced federal financing “has to be taken into account in terms of the development of the next generation of safety nets.”
However, if the message from some farm groups and provincial governments is to resist great cuts, the government will be hearing a different song from its parliamentary opposition.
Reform agriculture spokesman Allen Kerpan said last week his party will support cuts and a reduction in the size of Agriculture Canada as long as research funding is not cut and the head office bureaucracy is cut along with transfers to farmers.
He said the government should abolish both the Farm Credit Corporation and Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration in its budget-cutting.
Bloc QuŽbecois MPs likely will call for a transfer of federal agricultural jurisdiction to the provinces, including Quebec, as part of their plan to see Quebec secede.
