When it comes to CAIS payments, farmers should be like Santa Claus and check their list twice.
Marianne Cole found 38 errors in 138 lines on her 2007 payment form for Canadian Agricultural Income Stabilization. One lined added $21,000 of extra income and a second omitted $46,000 in expenses.
What triggered Cole to check the form was the cheque she received for the “paltry sum of $1,281.” In previous years her CAIS payments have been closer to $15,000.
“I started checking into it,” said Cole, who raises cattle near Rocky Mountain House, Alta.
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One of the first errors found was the addition of $21,000 of income from Alberta Hail and Crop Insurance. The family has never had hail and crop insurance on its eastern Alberta cattle ranch. Another line missed $46,000 worth of cattle purchases. A third gave year-old hay the same value as new hay. Cole compared the rest of the numbers with the farm account book and came up with 35 more mistakes ranging from a few dollars to a few thousand dollars.
Cole doesn’t know if the errors occurred at the accountant’s office or at the CAIS office at Lacombe, Alta.
“From everything I hear, there is certainly room for error with CAIS,” said Cole, who warned other farmers to check their forms.
When she asked one neighbour if he doubled-checked the forms, he told her “he was so disgusted with the small cheque and threw it on the kitchen table and never bothered to look at it.
“How many people are in this boat and don’t even check the figures if this is happening to us?”
Cole said she worked with the accountant to fill out the 2007 CAIS form in May and received the cheque in October. Cole then drove to Lacombe for a personal consultation about her CAIS payment, but after the meeting was told she’d have to write a letter of appeal, now at the bottom of the queue with the other appeals.
“It’s so complicated,” said Cole.
