Agriculture Canada’s budget will fall 25 percent to $2 billion next year when the agricultural policy framework is fully in effect, senior department officials said May 29.
But assistant deputy minister Bruce Deacon told MPs on the House of Commons agriculture committee that farmers will be better off because that $2 billion will be guaranteed in law.
During the past two years, a good portion of the $2.7 billion budget was ad hoc money that was politically unpredictable.
“It means there will be certainty about resources available,” Deacon said.
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Part of the drop will be the end of the $1.2 billion, two-year transition program that paid out $600 million last year and another $600 million this year.
Canadian Alliance MP David Anderson said it means there will be less money available for farmers, despite government claims the APF is a better and more generous program.
“It is a decline,” he said. “There will be less money for farm support next year than there has been for the past few years.”
But figuring out the actual amount of money that will be available is not a simple matter.
Assistant deputy minister Doug Hedley said as much as is needed will be available. The APF allocation of $1.1 billion in federal safety net funds is not the limit.
“If the demand is there, then we are allowed to go up in spending for that year,” he said.
Agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief also used an appearance before the agriculture committee May 26 to suggest that in years when demand is greater than $1.1 billion, more money will be found.
“Should there be a requirement for additional funding in the future, it means that we have the framework in place that allows us to respond through existing programs,” Vanclief told MPs.
“In short, it means greater stability and greater security for this sector.”
But that does not appear to be an open-ended commitment of unlimited funding to meet demand.
Hedley said the government is still bound by the five-year $5.2 billion federal APF funding commitment.
Spending more than $1.1 billion during one year of high demand presumes there will be future years when spending is less than $1.1 billion to keep the balance.
Meanwhile, Vanclief said administering APF will cost $70 million a year compared to the current cost of $65 million.
And the department has sharply reduced its estimate on how many new employees it will need to run the program.
Last winter, department officials told Parliament an additional 870 employees would have to be hired over the next three years, bringing the departmental total to 6,502 by 2005-06.
Now, it says just 120 will be added by then.
Deacon said it is because of co-operation with provinces and the retraining of employees who run existing programs.
