Although the federal Conservative government says it is aiming right now only at the Canadian Wheat Board’s barley monopoly, agriculture minister Gerry Ritz made clear in a document tabled in Parliament last week that the wheat monopoly is next.
In the introduction to Agriculture Canada’s plans for future years tabled in the House of Commons April 2, Ritz wrote that the government intends stable spending and innovative policies to keep the farm sector sustainable.
“We are working to enhance opportunities for our western wheat and barley producers through marketing choice,” he wrote.
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The government has introduced legislation that would allow Ottawa to change the CWB barley marketing mandate through cabinet order, rather than requiring a farmer vote, consultation with the board and then legislative change as the CWB Act requires.
Ritz has insisted he has no plans right now to move on wheat.
The barley bill has not yet been called for parliamentary debate and opposition MPs vow to delay and defeat it when it is called. The minister has said he wants it to become law by the time Parliament recesses in June so cabinet can change the rules by the Aug. 1 start of the new crop year.
Meanwhile, Agriculture Canada is projecting that while departmental spending will decline by more than half a billion dollars and more than 14 percent this fiscal year to $3.219 billion, it will decline only marginally in the two years following.
By fiscal year 2010-11, the department told Parliament it expects to be spending slightly more than $3 billion while maintaining a stable staff of 6,700.
Business risk management programming is projected to remain stable in the $2 billion range.
The department projects that the new disaster program planned under the Growing Forward agricultural policy framework, promised but not yet fully implemented, will cost Ottawa $121.7 million by 2010-11.
It projects the budget for crop insurance programs (and livestock insurance if a program is ever designed as promised) of $189 million by 2010-11 and annual cost-of-production compensation program payments of $106 million.
In his opening comments in the report, Ritz highlighted the government’s commitment to promoting biofuel as a key agricultural policy.
