Farmers will be knocking on the doors of the federal vault within weeks, asking for more than $1 billion in extraordinary government aid to help producers get their crop in the ground.
“I cannot tell you a number because we haven’t arrived at one yet but it will be large, no question about it,” Canadian Federation of Agriculture president Bob Friesen said in a Feb. 25 interview after being re-elected to head Canada’s largest farm lobby for the seventh year.
“The need out there is great. Farmers are desperate.”
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Last week in Ontario, farmers demonstrated in downtown Toronto to demand $300 million from the provincial government.
“When you see the projections and realize what they are asking in one province, I imagine the need nationally will be more than $1 billion,” said Friesen
On Parliament Hill, senior ministers are preparing for the visit, hinting that they may be receptive.
“Obviously the government is not at all unaware of the larger income problems that are in the farming community and we will need to bolster and replenish our programs as well as we can,” finance minister Ralph Goodale said after tabling a budget that offered little new funding for agriculture.
“Dealing with agriculture is an ongoing challenge and it gets dealt with in budgets and between budgets and the government will try to be as helpful as we can in what we know is a very difficult circumstance for farm families.”
Federal agriculture minister Andy Mitchell, who took the brunt of the criticism for what was considered a farmer-unfriendly budget, suggested he is willing to go to cabinet for more money if needed.
His department’s economists have projected that the farm economies of Saskatchewan, Ontario and Prince Edward Island lost money last year after depreciation is calculated and this year, Manitoba will join that sorry list.
“As I work with the industry and if we determine the solutions entail making additional investments, obviously I will push my colleagues in that respect,” the minister said in a Feb. 24 interview.
“One of the advantages I have is that the finance minister is a former agriculture minister and he comes from Saskatchewan. It’s nice to have that.”
Farm sector reviews of the budget were scathing.
While the federal Liberals announced plans to add $42 billion in spending over the next five years to a variety of causes including armed forces, child care, municipalities and environmental programs, there was just $130 million in new agriculture spending over five years.
Mitchell and Goodale tried to deflect the criticism by noting that the government’s agricultural support bill is at record levels but the money flows automatically from programs so it is not mentioned in the budget. The government says agriculture support totalled $4.9 billion last year.
The critics weren’t buying the argument.
“We are in the midst of one of the worst farm income crises in history and the federal budget allocates just 0.3 percent of new spending to agriculture,” Friesen fumed. “That is unacceptable.”
Ontario Federation of Agriculture president Ron Bonnett called it an insult.
“The crisis in the farm community is worse than I’ve ever seen,” he told Mitchell when he appeared at the CFA annual meeting Feb. 24. “We’re going to need an injection of cash before you get around to fixing CAIS (Canadian Agricultural Income Stabilization program).”
Terry Hildebrandt, president of the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan, said the existing safety net system, implemented under the agricultural policy framework, is not doing the job.
“What we’re doing is not working,” he told the minister. “We’ve got to start building APF 2.”
In the House of Commons, the Conservative opposition said it will not defeat the minority Liberal government on a budget vote, but it included agricultural criticism in the party amendment that will be voted on in the debate.
The party motion notes that the budget “makes no commitment to the agriculture sector and rural Canada to provide aid at a time when Canada’s regions need it most.”
Since the Bloc QuŽbecois and the NDP have announced they will oppose the budget, the election-wary Conservatives will have to be sure that enough of their MPs miss the vote on their own motion so that the Liberals prevail.
