RED DEER – The Alberta government says it is time for the federal government to come up with more money for beleaguered beef producers.
Agriculture minister Shirley McClellan said Alberta has paid out more than $400 million to cattle producers and is unlikely to put up any more money to help them deal with BSE.
“Alberta has already paid more than its share,” McClellan told reporters at a beef industry conference in Red Deer on Feb. 20. “This a national issue. This is an industry that has contributed in a huge way to the economy of this country,” she said.
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Earlier, at a Canadian Meat Council meeting, Alberta premier Ralph Klein said the province could not offer more money because of obligations to education, health and infrastructure.
He has suggested the federal government needs to expand national disaster aid beyond natural disasters like forest fires or floods and include farm crises or the impacts of situations like SARS.
The final aid instalment for his province is a steer and heifer market transition program available for Alberta producers with cattle on full feed as of last May 20 and destined for slaughter after Sept. 1, 2003.
Only producers who registered their Sept. 13 inventories are eligible. They will receive their applications during the last week of February and payments should be processed at the end of March.
The program compensates producers based on 60 percent of the difference between the 93 cents per pound reference price and the greater of the producer’s actual market price or the weekly average price on eligible animals sold between Sept. 13 and Feb. 15. Payments will be made per lb. of net live weight sold.
No payments are available for animals owned by packers, or owned by businesses or partnerships that are not arm’s length from packers.
Meanwhile, federal agriculture minister Bob Speller has joined the chorus of politicians calling for an investigation of packing industry pricing policies during the BSE crisis.
MPs on the House of Commons agriculture committee have requested a review of what chair Paul Steckle calls “profiteering” and last week, they aggressively challenged the decision of Competition Bureau commissioner Sheridan Scott that she does not have jurisdiction for such an investigation.
