OTTAWA – When he appeared before a Parliament Hill committee last week to talk about rural development, Tony Fuller saw access to affordable credit as a problem. “The banks are not interested in small loans and small business,” said the professor from the University of Guelph’s school of rural planning and development. “Attitudes have to […] Read more
Stories by Barry Wilson
OTTAWA NOTES
OTTAWA – The federal government is abolishing the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation advisory committee, but it will be no real loss. The committee has been inactive, unfunded and without members for the past quarter century. “It has been a paper organization only,” a PFRA spokesperson said. “It was useful when PFRA was started but hasn’t been […] Read more
Farm Credit Corp. turns profit
OTTAWA – For the second consecutive year, the Farm Credit Corporation made enough money to give some of it back to the Canadian government. In the year ended March 31, it made a profit of $40.4 million. Next September, it will pay a $2.7 #million dividend to the federal government, which over the years has […] Read more
Reform presses for more agriculture cuts
OTTAWA – Reform MPs last week tried, and failed, to convince the House of Commons agriculture committee that more than $20 million should be trimmed from Agriculture Canada’s 1996-97 budget. The Liberal majority voted down the proposals, as Reform MPs on the committee knew they would. Reform was making its budget-cutting point. As the committee […] Read more
Liberals shocked at politician who has principles
Last week, when Saskatchewan Liberal Senator, businessman and farmer Herb Sparrow stood in the Senate to be counted, he unleashed forces that threw the federal government into a panic. Sparrow, 28 years in the Senate as a loyal Liberal, had voted with the Conservatives to kill a government bill. His vote was pivotal, producing a […] Read more
New debt mediation won’t benefit farmers, say critics
OTTAWA – Thousands of farmers who have received help from farm debt review boards in the past decade would be out of luck and off the land under government proposals to change the system, a government MP complained last week. The proposed new farm debt mediation system, which will replace farm debt review boards, would […] Read more
Cash advance goes under scrutiny
OTTAWA – Beginning in the fall, the House of Commons agriculture committee will hold public hearings on a federal proposal to change the rules of the cash advance program, including making it tougher on defaulters. Legislation to create a national cash advance program with similar rules across the country was debated last week and sent […] Read more
Aid cut as rich reap higher grain prices
OTTAWA – There is a fatal contradiction in the fact that rich food-surplus nations are benefiting from record-high commodity prices while cutting the aid they give poor food-importing nations, says the United Nation’s top food bureaucrat. Jacques Diouf, director general of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, told a news conference higher grain prices are […] Read more
Cost recovery fees choking agriculture, says committee
OTTAWA – The Liberal-dominated Commons agriculture committee has issued a highly critical assessment of the government’s cost recovery program for the food industry. There is no comprehensive assessment of the impact nor co-ordination between departments imposing their own separate fees, the committee said last week in a sharp rebuking letter to Treasury Board president Marcel […] Read more
Poultry processors suggest industry changes
OTTAWA – Poultry and egg processors came to Parliament Hill last week saying they were there not to bury supply management but to urge its reform. Marketing agencies must become more reliable suppliers of lower-cost chickens and eggs if the industry is to remain viable, the Canadian Poultry and Egg Processors’ Council told the Commons […] Read more
