OTTAWA – The Liberal government is refusing to honor a $100,000 promise made by the former Progressive Conservative government to Manitoba cattle producers whose herds were hit by a 1991 tuberculosis outbreak.
Liberals say the pledge of additional compensation was a death-bed promise by former Conservative agriculture minister Charlie Mayer in the days leading up to the 1993 election.
To honor it would be an illegal expenditure, federal agriculture minister Ralph Goodale told Manitoba producers last month.
“It is … not possible to authorize an additional payment for the cattle ordered destroyed in 1991,” he wrote.
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For Liberal MP Marlene Cowling, whose Dauphin-Swan River constituency contains many of the affected producers, that should be the end of the story.
“It was a promise made by a former minister that we can’t meet,” she said. “I just don’t see it going anywhere else. It is the government view that it would be illegal to keep that promise, which should not have been made. We were left holding the bag.”
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That’s not the way Dale Smith sees it.
The president of the Manitoba Cattle Producers Association says there was a commitment made by Mayer on behalf of the government.
Failure to honor it will make Manitoba producers suspicious about co-operating in future disease eradication efforts, he told Goodale in a November letter.
“Money was found to compensate P.E.I. farmers over potato disease,” he said. “We want what is fair for us.”
At issue was an order in 1991 to destroy approximately 500 Manitoba cattle exposed to bovine TB.
Compensation of $1,000 per animal was paid, but producers said that was not enough.
After lobbying Mayer, a Manitoba MP, the minister agreed that the payment should be “topped up” by $200.
It would cost the federal treasury another $100,000.
He did not fulfil the promise before the Tories were routed from office in the October 1993 election.
Jake Hoeppner, the Reform MP who defeated Mayer, is vowing to continue to pressure Ottawa to make good on the promise.
He said it is unfair to ignore the pledge to Manitoba cattle producers when the Liberal government found $35 million to compensate Quebec this autumn for 1992 referendum costs, based on a verbal commitment by the former Conservative government.
