The House of Commons agriculture committee wants the government to change the rules of the $500 million AgriFlex program so that provinces can use it for farm income support.
The recommendation was made in a report sent to Parliament, but a dissenting report from Conservative MPs on the committee make clear the government is not interested in making the change.
“The motion adopted by the opposition majority on the (committee) to turn the government of Canada’s $500 million AgriFlexibility Fund into more money for business risk management is short-sighted and not beneficial to farmers,” they wrote.
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Opposition MPs approved the motion after farm leaders from Ontario and Quebec told them the campaign for a national flexible program was premised on the idea that it would be available to provide the federal 60 percent share of funding for provincial-specific farm support programs.
It was to be modeled on the federal-provincial companion program created in the 1990s but phased out under the agriculture policy framework.
William Van Tassel, president of the Ontario-Quebec Grain Farmers’ Coalition, said last month that the Conservative program is not what farmers thought they were being promised in the last election.
As a result, an Ontario risk management program that sets a minimum price for grain and oilseed crops and is funded by farmer premiums and the province will end unless Ottawa contributes its traditional 60 percent of government costs.
“AgriFlex is a program without flexibility,” he told MPs.
Farmers thought all four political parties were committed to it, “but it didn’t come out as we thought.”
Opposition MPs bought the argument. Conservatives did not.
When agriculture committee chair Larry Miller tabled the report Dec. 2, it came with a two-page Conservative dissent that argued the goal of the government program is to improve agricultural competitiveness and not prop up farm income.
“It has been determined that non-BRM type programs are best situated to provide targeted and regionally flexible investments to improve the long-term viability of the agriculture sector and for farmers,” Conservatives wrote.
They said the government approach is a better way to go, citing AgriFlex investments in traceability systems for livestock auctions, money to help food processors become more efficient and $1.7 million to help the Canola Council of Canada develop better communications systems to get information to canola growers.
During the mid-November committee meeting, MP Pierre Lemieux, parliamentary secretary to agriculture minister Gerry Ritz, laid out the government rationale for rejecting the idea.
“BRM programs don’t enhance competitiveness,” he said.
“They help farmers in difficult times. We need programs that look forward as well.”
