Manitoba’s opposition party promises to drop the gloves when the
legislative session begins April 22.
Progressive Conservative agriculture critic Jack Penner says his party
will confront the New Democratic Party government over what it sees as
its negligent management of the farm economy.
“I’ll give them their first two years in office, because they were new,
but now there can be no excuses,” Penner said in an interview at the
legislature.
“The (agriculture) minister (Rosann Wowchuk) and her colleagues were
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very ignorant about agriculture when they were elected, but they’ve now
had time to get acquainted with it.”
Penner said the government has failed to address national and
international issues that are ravaging the Manitoba farm economy.
The government hasn’t acted strenuously enough to get the federal
government to protect Manitoba farmers from the effects of American
farm subsidies, Penner said.
The federal government needs to be prodded and Wowchuk doesn’t seem
willing to do it, he said. His party will be demanding the government
explain why it hasn’t done more to get federal action. He said his
party would have organized a national summit of provincial farm
ministers to make the issue national news. He wondered why Wowchuk
hasn’t done that.
And the provincial government hasn’t moved to capture the economic
compensation that should have come to Manitoba after the end of the
Crow Benefit transportation subsidy. Penner said livestock production
should have quickly flowed into the province because its feed grains
became cheaper. But the provincial government has not gotten Manitoba a
bigger share of the supply management pie, so there hasn’t been the
growth in eggs, broiler chicken or dairy production that there should
have been.
He said when the contentious hog barn approval issue is raised, his
party will challenge the NDP on what he says is the confusion it has
left in rural Manitoba, where municipal councils have been suffering
because of uncertainty over hog barn approvals.
He doesn’t support taking environmental approval away from
municipalities, which is something Wowchuk has said she is considering.
Penner said he will also confront the government about why it is doing
nothing to lower the taxation burden on farmland.
He also intends to shine the light on what he sees as a sneaky
government attempt to remove money from the crop insurance fund without
anyone noticing.
“They got their fingers in there, and what did they do with the money?”
Penner said.
“Is that money that they’re using to pay the increase in nurses’
salaries?”
Penner said there are many farm and rural issues that deserve
prominence in the coming legislative session.
But with Winnipeg and Brandon’s urban concerns dominating media
coverage, his party will try to link rural issues to city issues to get
some attention.
Since both cities rely on agriculture, but don’t always realize it, the
challenge will be to “make agriculture relevant” to urban voters,
Penner said.
