The federal farm income support programs designed by the former Conservative government half a decade ago have proven successful on several fronts, the Liberal government reported to Parliament last week.
When the Tories pushed the Farm Income Protection Act through Parliament in 1991, the then-opposition Liberals fought it as inadequate.
Last week, in a report to Parliament, the governing Liberals were singing a different tune.
In a report tabled in the House of Commons, agriculture minister Ralph Goodale said that despite some flaws, the programs launched by the previous government did their job of stabilizing farm income.
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The combination of Gross Income Insurance Plan, Net Income Stabilization Account, crop insurance and tripartite stabilization programs got the farm sector through the roller coaster years of the early 1990s.
There was a concern when FIPA was proposed by the former government that volatile farm prices would devastate the farming sector and the rural communities it supported. The programs did not alleviate all the hurt, says the government.
“There was an increase in the number of farm failures and there was pressure on rural communities but this impact would have been much more severe without the support provided through FIPA,” said the government in a five-year report card required by the 1991 legislation.
Provinces responsible
As important for the Liberals, the Tory farm support plan shifted a greater share of the financial responsibility to the provinces.
“Provincial involvement in agricultural safety nets was relatively small prior to the introduction of FIPA,” Goodale reported.
“In the period 1985-1990, safety net expenditures by provinces were 67 percent of those of the federal government. By 1995, this percentage had increased to 95 percent.”
Still, for all its successes, the Tory combination of programs has unravelled.
Tripartite stabilization has been cast aside by the industry as trade distorting and therefore susceptible to foreign countervail harassment.
GRIP has been discarded in most provinces as inadequate.
Ottawa and the provinces have agreed to a new system until 1999 which combines with crop insurance as the national base, supplemented by provincial companion programs.
Goodale said that is the future direction, but it was not a condemnation of Tory programs of the past.
