Amid predictions that governments are writing rules to keep their farm aid spending well below the $1.5 billion promised in December, Canadian farm leaders last week vowed to turn up the political heat to try to get a better package sooner.
“I just think the political resolve has faded and the bureaucrats are nickel-and-diming,” said Canadian Federation of Agriculture president Jack Wilkinson.
Ottawa has told provinces it will spend less than $400 million of its available $900 million this year, with less than $200 million expected from the provinces.
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Wilkinson said 1999 spending almost certainly would be less, based on rules being written by officials. It could mean a government obligation of closer to $1 billion than $1.5 billion in what one farm leader last week sarcastically called “the incredible shrinking farm aid package.”
As federal-provincial negotiations continued to close off avenues that could have increased cash flowing to farmers, the CFA president said it is clear the government game is to keep spending to a minimum.
Without coverage of negative margins, and by counting NISA money as part of the package, government liability is decreasing, he said. Prospects that hog prices and perhaps even grain prices could strengthen next year mean government obligations fall even further.
“The way things are going, I can guarantee it will not cost them near what they said was available,” said Wilkinson. “There is no need for them to say they cannot afford things like negative margins.”
Value diminished
In Winnipeg, Keystone Agricultural Producers president Don Dewar got the message.
“I think the bureaucrats are working hard to try to limit the value of this program. It makes it less useful for farmers than their ministers intended,” Dewar said Jan. 18 as he prepared for an afternoon meeting with provincial bureaucrats.
In Ontario, the federation of agriculture sent a letter to farmers asking them to start calling federal and provincial politicians.
“Ask them what the hold-up is,” wrote OFA official Catrina Causi. “Time is running out for some farmers and it still is unclear as to when and how much needed money will be flowing to them.”
As Liberal MPs returned to Ottawa last week for a pre-Parliament caucus, they found waiting for them an explanation of farm aid proposals supported by most farm groups, with a plea that they lobby inside government for action.
Wilkinson said part of the problem is that ministers appear to have “fallen asleep” and left the details to their officials who are trying to protect their budgets.
Farmers must make their politicians understand “the need to have a real program that will pay out funds farmers need now, not one that is designed to pay out only the bare minimum,” he wrote in an ‘open letter to the farmers of Canada’ last week.
In a Jan. 18 interview, Saskatchewan deputy agriculture minister Terry Scott said the bureaucrats’ goal is not to write the least expensive program possible but to find the best rules to meet the need. Spending commitments are not fixed.
“(Federal minister Lyle) Vanclief said right from the start that if the $900 million is not needed, based on the payment formula, then it is not needed,” he said. “I did not get any definite idea that the $900 million would definitely be spent.”
