This week with much fanfare, finance minister Jim Flaherty pronounced the government’s anti-recession multibillion-dollar Economic Action Plan a resounding success.However, his own numbers indicate that agriculture played little role in the program of tax dollar largesse.In a Montreal speech and later in the House of Commons, Flaherty said the government had spent more than $33 billion to March 31, 2010, and will spend another $22 billion this fiscal year, supplemented by $7 billion from other levels of government.”Canada’s Economic Action Plan is a two-year $62 billion plan to boost confidence and support the economy in response to the deepest global recession since the 1930s,” the finance minister said in an update on the program tabled in the House of Commons.It funded more than 23,000 projects and with Ontario, sent more than $14 billion to Ontario-based auto manufacturers.When the 145-page report got to agriculture, the gruel became rather thin.Flaherty reported that $172 million has been allocated during the first two years of the five-year Agri-Flexibility Fund announced last year, although not all of it has been spent yet.Under the $60 million Slaughter Improvement Program to help regional slaughter plants to upgrade or expand, $54-million has been “committed” but much of it is not yet spent.To fatten the agricultural references, the finance department threw in $152.4 million in loans under the Canadian Agricultural Loans Act and the $270 million in federal dollars that were announced as AgriRecovery money for flooded prairie farmers in the summer, although neither have an obvious tie to the government’s anti-recession spending program.In the report, the federal government cited the full $450 million announced for AgriRecovery, even though 40 percent of that was contributed by the provincial prairie governments.It even threw in potential payments from farm programs as part of the government stimulus program, although the programs were designed through federal-provincial negotiations long before the recession began and the Economic Action Plan was announced.”In addition to targeted assistance, existing federal-provincial business risk management programs such as AgriInsurance, AgriStability and AgriInvest will significantly help farmers manage the impact of this natural disaster as the first lines of defense to address income shortfalls,” said the report.
Agriculture played small role in anti-recession spending
By
explore
Stories from our other publications
