Saskatchewan’s standing committee on agriculture will be dusted off and
put to work this spring to examine the contentious issue of farmland
ownership.
The committee has not met since it convened for one day in December
1999 to discuss the farm income crisis. Before that, it hadn’t met
since 1953.
Agriculture minister Clay Serby said the committee will hold hearings,
but he hasn’t decided where or for how long.
Although he has been hearing from farm groups and individuals on this
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subject for a long time, he said it is important to make sure that
everyone who has an opinion is heard.
“I want to make sure I’ve given this subject area as full a consult as
I can before I make some decisions,” he said in an interview after the
March 14 throne speech. “And for those people who have been a bit too
cute about what their position is, I’m going to ask them to make it
more firm.”
The committee will have to begin its work soon if Serby is to proceed
with legislation this session. He said he is committed to amending the
Saskatchewan Farm Security Act, but people shouldn’t assume the worst.
Some believe that people who live outside the province, but still in
Canada, should be able to own more than the 320 acres the law now
allows. Others say opening up the law will lead to absentee landowners.
Non-Canadians may own only 10 acres, under current legislation.
Meanwhile, Serby said farm leaders likely chose not to attend the
throne speech because they already knew what it contained.
“I meet with my farm leaders probably once a month and sometimes more
often,” he said. “They helped craft what went in it.”
The speech mentioned the Action Committee on the Rural Economy’s work
toward rural revitalization and the forthcoming plan to develop the
ethanol industry.
It also referred to the safety net program put forward by Serby at an
agricultural ministers’ meeting earlier this year.
Saskatchewan Party agriculture critic Bill Boyd said the NDP has been
promising a long-term safety net in every throne speech since 1992, but
it still hasn’t delivered.
“There was a shocking lack of any kind of policy initiatives with
respect to agriculture,” said Boyd, who raised the issue during
Question Period March 15.
Outside the legislature, premier Lorne Calvert said the province
continues to lobby and pressure Ottawa for better programs and extra
money for drought-stricken farmers.
But provincial Liberal leader David Karwacki said the province isn’t
trying hard enough. He said the government talks tough at home, but
only postures when in Ottawa.
“There are dollars available,” he told reporters, but he wouldn’t say
who had told him that.
Karwacki said Ottawa would come up with more money if the province did.
“I don’t get the sense that they want an ag deal to get done,” he said
of the provincial government, adding Saskatchewan doesn’t want to spend
money because of its fiscal situation.
