The co-chair of the national safety nets advisory committee last week condemned the latest federal-provincial farm aid deal as too small, “reckless,” short-sighted and potentially dangerous to Canadian food exporters.
Bob Friesen, who is also president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, said farmers could be facing more trade challenges from competing countries because of “short-sighted” political decisions.
He warned that a decision to distribute safety net funds among provinces as block transfers based on provincial size, rather than as demand-triggered payments, could open Canada to trade challenges on export crops.
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“I think there is a very real risk that this decision to change the funding basis for programs like NISA (Net Income Stabilization Account) will open us up to trade challenges and that is the last thing farmers need right now.”
Friesen complained that federal and provincial agriculture ministers who met in Ottawa Jan. 14 ignored key recommendations sent from the safety nets advisory committee several days before the meeting.
Friesen, who co-chairs the minister’s advisory committee with senior Agriculture Canada official Doug Hedley, suggested the federal and provincial politicians were becoming “reckless” in their search for quick short-term solutions.
“The CFA urges the federal and provincial governments to stop the madness of putting politics before government and a quest for votes ahead of the future of Canada’s farmers,” he said in a statement.
Friesen said there are two main problems with the Jan. 14 agreement to organize a new two-year farm income disaster program and to change the formula on how to distribute the base $600 million federal safety net fund.
First is size.
Ottawa has offered $500 million a year for two years in disaster aid. It also spends $600 million a year on the basic safety net funds designed to pay federal shares of crop insurance, NISA and companion programs.
The safety net committee argued that instead of $1.1 billion, Ottawa should spend$1.4 billion annually.
The second major problem is Ottawa’s agreement with eight provinces that the $600 million should be allocated according to the size of provincial farm cash receipts, rather than on the basis of risk or need.
For a program like NISA, Friesen said block funding without specific strings attached mean federal dollars can be spent differently in different provinces and the crops supported by those funds could become subject to countervail challenge.
In its Jan. 10 letter, the advisory committee wrote: “The committee has always maintained that the design of effective and useful safety nets must not be constrained by a pre-determined funding allocation.”
Friesen said the implication of ministers choosing to ignore that advice is that exports once again will be in jeopardy.
– WILSON
