Budget day in Ottawa has traditionally been when farm leaders learn where their sector fits into government priorities and how much money will be flowing to producers.
With austerity in the air and farm programs locked in through separate federal-provincial agreements, those days are gone.
Farm leaders weren’t expecting to hear significant funding announcements when finance minister Jim Flaherty rose in the House of Commons March 21, after deadlines for this issue, to deliver his 2013 budget speech.
Instead, they hoped to hear a government commitment for infrastructure investment and regulatory review and reform.
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“I think on the spending side, what we get is pretty well known through the Growing Forward programs that roll out April 1,” Canadian Federation of Agriculture president Ron Bonnett said.
“We’re not anticipating huge cuts, but since this also is a budget dealing with deficit reduction, we also want to make sure we keep our core funding.”
Governments have already signalled that some core funding will be reduced, although not because of the budget. Tighter AgriInvest and AgriStability rules included in the new programs are expected to save governments hundreds of millions of dollars over the next five years.
Bonnett said the CFA would like to see a government commitment to invest more in research and to keep open research facilities that are being scaled back or possibly closed.
He said the budget should signal that agricultural adaptation funding will be continued.
“And it would be nice to see a reference to plans to launch a rail freight costing review as the next step after the level-of-service review process is complete.”
Grain Growers of Canada executive director Richard Phillips said priorities include a government commitment to “a neutral assessment of the public good component of the Grain Commission and a review of the needed changes in the commission’s structure and mandate, given the sweeping changes in the grain sector.”
He said the end of the CWB single desk in 2012 has not been followed by needed grain commission reform.
“Last review still had the CWB monopoly in place and the commercial trade needs are (now) different,” he said.
A key part of the debate has become how much the government should continue to pay to cover the “public good” flowing from some commission services that benefit the broader economy.
Grain Growers insist that the proposed new fee-for-service structure is downloading too much of the cost onto farmers.
