Documents tabled in Parliament by agriculture minister Gerry Ritz offer a behind-the-scenes glimpse of how many times federal cabinet must deal with requests for farm support.
The documents, which are copies of Privy Council orders based on cabinet decisions, show that cabinet approved 30 requests from Ritz to authorize spending of $1 billion under the Farm Income Protection Act in the three years to Feb. 18, 2011.
It gives substance to the old Parliament Hill joke that when cabinet sees the agriculture minister arriving, finance ministers try to find a back door exit.
It also illustrates the dizzying array of farm disaster requests an agriculture minister brings before his largely urban cabinet counterparts.
The requests from Ritz, approved by cabinet and already spent but now sent to the House of Commons agriculture committee for examination if it chooses, range from the national and large to the extremely local.
On Feb. 18, 2011, cabinet approved spending up to $21.7 million to help drought-affected Peace River livestock producers and flood-affected northeastern Saskatchewan livestock producers buy feed. Two months earlier, $10.8 million was approved for flood-affected Manitoba producers.
In August last year, $276 million was authorized to help waterlogged prairie farmers. Three months earlier, it was $33 million for producers affected by droughts.
A September 2008 spending approval covered all bases, setting $6.12 million aside to help Manitoba livestock producers “affected by drought or late-season flooding.”
There was $3.3 million in June 2009 for Quebec potato farmers affected by golden nematode, $3.2 million that April to compensate Prince Edward Island potato farmers affected by floods and $15.1 million a year earlier to Alberta potato farmers affected by potato cyst nematode.
The biggest ticket items were for the ailing hog industry: $404 million in September 2009 to guarantee financial institution loans to hog producers and $50 million in 2008 to the Canadian Pork Council to administer the breeding swine cull program.
Then there were the small, specific requests for government money to help individuals or small groups of producers.
In May 2010, cabinet approved spending $56,700 “to assist poultry producers in British Columbia whose flocks were destroyed following an outbreak of avian influenza.”
On July 4, 2008, the government approved $111,690 “to assist cattle producers in B.C. affected by bovine tuberculosis.”
A year later, the minister was back asking for a bit more on the TB file for one more B.C. producer. Cabinet approved $51,000 “to assist a cattle producer in B.C. affected by the special measures taken as a result of the discovery of bovine tuberculosis.”
