A day after federal finance minister Jim Flaherty produced a budget devoid of big spending plans, Canadian Federation of Agriculture delegates were in a mood to spend more government money.
A series of resolutions approved by delegates to the CFA annual meeting Feb. 27 would cost Ottawa billions of dollars.
In short order, delegates approved with little debate resolutions calling on the Conservative government to:
- Spend $1 billion annually to fund province-specific farm programs.
- Change whole farm compensation rules to allow a diversified farmer to file separate agri-stability claims for each portion of the operation, increasing the cost to the program. Delegates complained that a farmer with a mixed grain-livestock operation is being denied help for livestock losses because of profits on the grain side.
- Spend hundreds of millions of dollars on an exit strategy for Ontario’s tobacco farmers.
- Increase spending to compensate livestock operators for loss of equity after BSE was discovered in Canada in 2003.
- Extend disaster funding to supply managed sectors.
- Abolish all Canadian Food Inspection Agency cost-recovery fees.
- Compensate farmers for the impact that a soaring Canadian dollar has had on export revenues.
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The latter resolution was the most expensive demand. It said that in light of the revenue losses that follow a rising Canadian dollar, the government should “set up an emergency action plan that will compensate the adverse effects of the stronger Canadian dollar on the Canadian agricultural sector.”
In his speech to delegates, CFA president Bob Friesen said every penny increase in the value of the Canadian dollar reduces the value of exports to the United States by $230 million.
With a 2007 dollar value escalation of close to 20 cents, the total cost of the currency impact would exceed $4 billion.
Meanwhile, CFA delegates found themselves deeply divided over the appropriate Canadian trade policy at the World Trade Organization.
The CFA has long urged the federal government to maintain a balanced position of supporting no decline in protection for supply management while pressing for better export access for Canadian products.
When Quebec’s Union des Producteurs Agricoles proposed a motion that the CFA support a message to the government demanding it stand by its commitment to make no concessions on supply management, exporter members of the CFA complained that it was an unbalanced message.
Their ability to win export concessions could be undermined by the insistence that the key goal is protecting supply management.
The motion was set aside and a compromise worked out that saw two resolutions approved, reflecting the view that there be no concessions on supply management tariff protections while strengthening the ability of export-oriented sectors to gain access to foreign markets.
The key compromise phrase was that “the CFA urge the government to not negotiate for one sector at the expense of another.”
