Farmers who hoped the next five-year framework for farm programs would include improvements in farm safety net programs will be disappointed, MPs have heard.
Blame the provinces.
Ontario Conservative Ben Lobb had some pointed questions last week when assistant deputy agriculture minister Greg Meredith appeared before the House of Commons agriculture committee to outline the state of federal-provincial negotiations over the next generation of Growing Forward.
Will changes be made to AgriStability to make it more bankable? he asked. Will there be changes to margin calculation and the viability test that requires a producer to have earned money in two of the past three years to be eligible for help?
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Meredith said no, and he suggested it is because some provincial ministers do not agree.
“We took those specific issues to (federal, provincial, territorial) ministers on more than one occasion in the past two years, two-and-a-half years,” he said.
“In each instance, the collective of ministers said no, we don’t choose to go down that path. Because we are a shared jurisdiction, these programs are all federal and provincial shared, the federal minister can’t unilaterally change these programs.”
Meredith said fairness is often the underlying issue when officials make proposals.
“Some would lose, some wouldn’t and what is going to be the cost,” he said. “On those occasions when we proposed it, ministers have said collectively ‘no.’ ”
His response led Lobb to assume that Ottawa wants to improve the programs but some provinces are reluctant.
Can the reluctant provinces be identified? he asked.
“No,” Meredith replied, “because we do try to make a collective outcome, a collective decision.”
Liberal MP Frank Valeriote later returned to the issue and Meredith seemed to backt rack on who opposed the program changes.
“I gather from your answer that the federal minister of agriculture was prepared to make changes to the model but some unnamed provincial ministers weren’t prepared to make changes, just to be clear,” he said.
“I would say no,” replied Meredith. “In the case of the parameter changes, I wouldn’t say it was our minister versus the provinces. I wouldn’t characterize the discussion that way.”
Alberta Conservative Brian Storseth raised the issue of the complexity of the AgriStability program and the expense of farmers’ hiring an accountant to do the paperwork.
“Even they have problems with it.”
Meredith said officials holding the consultations also have heard those complaints, but there is no obvious quick fix.
