Agriculture Canada is using deception, “false and misleading” arguments and sleight-of-hand in a last minute effort to sell the public and provincial agriculture ministers on the need to launch the new national agriculture policy April 1, farm leaders told a House of Commons committee Feb. 20.
Meanwhile, the government is refusing to acknowledge or react to farmer complaints that the new program design may be flawed and should not be rushed into existence before more study and negotiation has happened, they said.
Grain Growers of Canada president Ken Bee and Canadian Federation of Agriculture president Bob Friesen teamed up on Parliament Hill to issue harsh judgments about how the agriculture department has handled design and implementation of the agricultural policy framework announced last June with a $5.2 billion six-year commitment.
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It includes two national federally supported programs – expanded production insurance and expanded Net Income Stabilization Account programs with disaster assistance embedded in the new NISA.
But Canada’s major farm organizations have moved from strong support of the APF principles last summer to strong opposition to how the government plans to implement it.
“The industry currently is very very frustrated,” Friesen told MPs. “A lot of our fundamental concerns have not been dealt with.”
Bee, who heads a grains and oilseeds group that represents wheat, corn and oilseeds farmers, agreed.
“Our support of the principles of APF has not translated into support for the detailed program proposals currently being discussed,” he said.
Both farm leaders pleaded with MPs to try to convince Vanclief to delay implementation by a year so farmers can have more information and more analysis of how the proposals will work.
The farm leaders said Ottawa’s plans, which need provincial endorsement for full implementation, are flawed because they will cost farmers more money, possibly offer less support, remove federal support for provincially tailored programs, may be subject to greater risk of trade challenge and will produce confusion and little producer confidence.
In the rush to April 1, too much is unknown to justify locking farmers into a five-year program, they said.
Opposition MPs were sympathetic but few Liberal MPs showed up for the testimony and most Liberals with a background in the issue were not there or did not stay.
Committee chair Paul Steckle, on record as saying he believes farmers will accept the APF when it is implemented, told the farm leaders that it is time to end “brinkmanship” but also important that the government devise a program that farmers accept.
Several weeks before, Agriculture Canada officials made their APF pitch to the committee and insisted that the new programs would be superior to what is now available.
