Northern Alberta Conservative MP Brian Storseth looked like he could scarcely believe his ears.
John Gillespie, chair of the Beef Information Centre and a Canadian Cattlemen’s Association board member from Ontario, was asked during a March 10 appearance before the House of Commons agriculture committee about provincial payments to the livestock sector.
“We’ve got a lot of balkanization going on,” he said.
“It’s a big issue with us at the CCA, especially with Alberta. They represent the largest volume of cattle in there and they’ve been pumping money to their producers to the disadvantage of all the other producers.”
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How should the federal government react, asked Liberal Mark Eyking.
“We do have the CAIS (Canadian Agricultural Income Stabilization) program, which is common to all provinces,” Gillespie said.
“One way we can offset that money is if one of the provinces wants to bulk up that money, we can withdraw or delete some of the federal CAIS money that goes into those provinces to make some equalization.”
When Storseth got his turn, he offered Gillespie a chance to correct the record. He also noted later that CAIS no longer exists.
“Surely you’re not suggesting in any way that Alberta producers should be penalized with the federal programs because they are getting an additional $120 per head,” he said.
Gillespie persisted.
“My personal opinion would be to take the money from Alberta, as the policy with the CCA is to make the CAIS program much more responsive so that individual provinces don’t have to launch their own programs,” he said.
“I think you missed the mark,” Storseth responded.
In a later interview, the Alberta MP said the CCA director’s opinions were unwarranted.
“Those are very divisive comments,” he said from his riding March 13.
“To talk about penalizing a province that is trying to take the initiative is inappropriate.”
Storseth said other provinces would be wise to look to Alberta’s example, paying money to producers but tying it to development of an age verification system for cattle.
“Age verification is going to be a huge market advantage and I think premier (Ed) Stelmach was a year ahead on the issue by bringing it into Alberta,” he said. “We need to be able to let farmers farm the market and in some markets including Asia, this is a way to let that happen.”
Storseth said Saskatchewan missed an opportunity when it did not tie its per head livestock payment to launching an age verification program.
He also said Quebec continues to have one of the richest farm programs in the country.
“I don’t hear anyone saying we should penalize Quebec through federal programs for their support of farmers,” he said. “I don’t think Alberta should be targeted.”
