WHISTLER, B.C. – After what was acknowledged as a difficult two-day meeting of federal and provincial agriculture ministers, they emerged June 29 to proclaim agreement in principle on a successor to the agricultural policy framework.
Details to follow.
It sets up more tense negotiations over the summer as provincial and federal officials try to resolve contentious issues on how disaster programs will be co-funded, how national standards mesh with a promise of regional programming flexibility and how the new business risk management programs will actually work.
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Ministers meet again in September to try to squeeze out more agreement.
“We have talked in 30,000 foot terms,” Ontario minister Leona Dombrowsky told the closing news conference June 29.
“While you have heard the significant principles of the framework, Ontario has made it clear it is looking for flexibility.”
In a later interview, she said: “Ontario will not settle for less.”
Saskatchewan’s Mark Wartman, who during a mid-conference interview accused the federal government of inflexibility, disrespect for the provinces and bullying tactics, said more details need to be known about how the new programs will work and his province needs a less onerous cost-sharing formula.
“I think one of the general senses that we have is that we need a process that is more respectful of provincial ministers, that we’re actually not just coming here to approve what’s been laid out but that we actually engage in the process,” Wartman said.
Yet despite the tensions that spilled out of the room, ameliorated somewhat by some last hour compromises in wording by federal minister Chuck Strahl, the news conference offered a significant dose of federal-provincial sweetness and light.
British Columbia minister Pat Bell said Strahl had shown “great flexibility” and the result of hard ministerial work was a plan that will help farmers prosper while agriculture grows.
Strahl pronounced himself pleased that the ministers had been able to agree on the principles of a new plan that will replace the unpopular Canadian Agricultural Income Stabilization program. He promised farmers will be involved in writing the details of new programs that will take effect when the APF expires March 31.
“What came out of our consultative process is that producers expect us to consult with them as we design programs,” Strahl said.
“What they didn’t want us to do here at Whistler was hunker down for a day or two and say we have all the answers.”
Manitoba’s Rosann Wowchuk, one of the provincial dissidents on any proposal that disaster funding be 60 percent federal money and 40 percent provincial, said she was on board but tough bargaining remains to be done.
“I think that we’ve made some very good progress and we are moving forward on what the next stage of programs will look like,” she said.
“We have listened to producers and I think what producers have asked for have been worked into the program and now we have to go back for another round of input from them to see if this will work for them or not.”
Unlike the previous five year, $5.1 billion program promise, ministers have not yet put a price on the next five year framework. But it will have a new name, Grow Forward, to replace the APF, and a set of business risk management programs with new names to distance them from the unpopular CAIS.
The new top-end farmer contributory insurance plan fashioned on the Net Income Stabilization Account plan will be the AgriInvest program.
What was the margin-based CAIS will become AgriStability.
The expansion of crop insurance to cover livestock and other commodities will be the AgriInsurance program.
And the still-to-be-designed national disaster assistance program will be called AgriRecovery.
After the meeting, Canadian Federation of Agriculture president Bob Friesen said the agreement-in-principle was exactly what was needed.
“Now we can begin to work hard to design programs that work and that will be ready for a seamless transition when the existing programs expire,” he said.
“Farmers have been getting concerned that programs and program funding will lapse before replacements are ready. That would be unacceptable.”
However, he said producers also need time to scrutinize the new programs when they are designed “to make sure they will work better, not like the last time when clearly flawed programs were imposed.”
