It has become something of an article of faith among Canadian farm lobbyists that American farmers now receive more government help than do their Canadian counterparts.
Last week, a federal spokesperson told the House of Commons that is not true.
Responding to criticism from Bloc QuŽbecois MP Jean-Guy ChrŽtien about falling government support for dairy farmers, Liberal MP Jerry Pickard, parliamentary secretary to the agriculture minister, produced figures suggesting Canadian farmers still receive more support than Americans.
He used the Producer Subsidy Equivalent, a measuring tool developed by economists to calculate the percentage of farm revenues that can be attributed to support from government.
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It counts both direct government subsidy and benefits from higher prices produced by regulations such as supply management.
“In 1996, the PSE for Canada for all agriculture was 22 percent and for the dairy sector it was 57 percent,” said Pickard. “In the United States, the PSE for all agricultural products was considerably lower at 16 percent and for the U.S. dairy sector it was lower also at 48 percent.”
Bureaucrat wanted
The federal government is raiding the ranks of the Alberta government to fill one of its senior prairie-based bureaucratic positions.
Effective April 14, Oryssia Lennie will leave her position as Alberta’s deputy minister of federal and intergovernmental affairs to become associate deputy minister of western economic diversification for the federal government.
She will become deputy minister when current deputy minister John McLure retires later this year.
Lennie, 49, has worked for the Alberta government since 1971. Between 1973 and 1975, she worked in the office of premier Peter Lougheed.
