Federal agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief heads into a crucial agriculture ministers’ meeting Jan. 31 facing the prospect that just two months before he wants to phase in the next generation of farm programs, the momentum appears to be with the opponents.
Ontario minister Helen Johns, who signed the agriculture policy framework, goes to the meeting with demands from Ontario farmers that she back out of her support unless Ottawa compromises.
“We have told minister Johns not to sign an implementing agreement on any part of the APF,” Ontario Federation of Agriculture, vice-president Bill Mailloux said in an interview.
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“We understand the minister will follow that advice. This proposal is unacceptable. We need a year’s extension of existing programs to get the details right.”
During a stormy meeting in Toronto Jan. 22, OFA directors denounced federal proposals to radically change how the Net Income Stabilization Account program works, and that would create a new production insurance program and end support for provincial companion programs.
Former OFA president Jack Wilkinson was quoted in a federation statement as condemning the proposed new NISA program: “Your proposal starts with not enough and goes to nothing and the next program is designed on keeping nothing forever.”
The federal response is that a guarantee of $1.1 billion in federal spending for five years is far more than nothing.
Vanclief still lacks the signatures of three provinces – Saskatchewan, Quebec and Prince Edward Island – and has been predicting that all will sign before the April 1 starting date.
Instead, he faces the prospect of some provinces that have signed in principle backing away. Last week, the Dairy Farmers of Canada voted to lobby provincial ministers against signing unless Ottawa agrees to significant changes.
Vanclief has insisted that while farmers will see few changes this year in the three-year phase-in of crop insurance and NISA, implementation must start April 1, 2003 if he is to keep all the promised federal money.
Last week, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture called on the federal cabinet to change the funding conditions to allow a one-year extension of existing programs so more work can be done on details of successor programs.
“The current program design proposal offers Canadian producers less protection at a higher cost,” CFA president Bob Friesen said in a message to cabinet. Instead of moving farmers “beyond crisis management, these programs will exacerbate the situation.”
However, there was no indication agriculture received attention during the Jan. 23 cabinet meeting. Vanclief was on vacation and did not attend.
And in a fiery speech to the Dairy Farmers of Canada annual meeting, Friesen implied that Vanclief doesn’t understand the industry criticism that his APF safety net proposals have unleashed.
The CFA president recalled a stormy reception the agriculture minister received when he visited the annual meeting of Quebec’s Union des Producteurs Agricoles last autumn.
“Sometimes if they don’t get it, we have to draw them a picture,” he said. “When I attended the UPA annual meeting in December, the UPA members drew a picture for the agriculture minister because he just didn’t get it.”
