Last week’s cautious federal budget was proof that the farm sector has received special treatment and extraordinary attention from the Liberal government, says agriculture minister Bob Speller.
On March 23, the Liberals stressed “fiscal prudence” by restraining spending increases, promising to make program and spending cuts, vowing to set aside reserves to avoid a possibility of future deficits and announcing a plan to keep reducing the relative size of the national debt.
“What we will do is balance the books and better control spending because Canadians have come too far and sacrificed too much to slide back into the glue of red ink and deficits,” finance minister Ralph Goodale told the House of Commons.
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federal government proposed several months ago to increase the compensation rate from 80 to 90 per cent and double the maximum payment from $3 million to $6 million
“Again this year, we present a balanced budget as we will do next year and the year after that.”
He avoided tax cuts or big spending promises.
But the previous day, the government had announced a $995 million farm aid package separate from the budget, allowing Goodale to preserve his cautious theme.
Speller said farmers should take note.
“The money the government has invested in farmers and farm families, $995 million, is a lot of money,” he said.
“Look at how fiscally prudent we were in this budget. I think it serves to highlight how important the investment was.”
It also meant there was little new for agriculture or rural Canada in the budget.
Through the budget papers tabled in Parliament, Goodale announced:
- Ottawa will spend $5 million annually for up to seven years to fund research on BSE and similar transmissible spongiform encephalopathy diseases. The department said the new research money is meant “to further support Canadians in their research leadership roles and position Canada as a world leader in TSE-BSE science.”
- Farm Credit Canada will receive an additional $20 million to invest in risky venture capital projects.
During a March 25 appearance before the Commons agriculture committee, FCC president John Ryan said the government gave the crown corporation $50 million in 2002 for venture capital investment and $14 million has been invested, attracting $24.8 million in private sector funds.
He said the money typically is used to fund riskier value-added projects. In response to a query from Conservative MP Howard Hilstrom about the possibility of the money going to “Liberal-friendly firms,” Ryan said politics does not play a role in investment decisions.
- A $1 billion infrastructure investment for rural and smaller urban municipalities announced last year as a 10-year project now will be spent over five years.
Finance department officials said federal-provincial agreements on how to spend the money have yet to be reached, but money should start flowing this year. It is meant to be a three-way funding split between federal, provincial and local governments and the federal-provincial agreement will decide how much emphasis will be put on rural municipalities.
Saskatchewan will receive $38 million in federal funding under the program while Manitoba will be allocated $41 million and Alberta $88 million.
Conservative agriculture critic Gerry Ritz criticized the government for all but ignoring agriculture in the budget.
“It is a huge industry and it doesn’t exist in this government’s plans for the year.”
Canadian Federation of Agriculture president Bob Friesen said the real budget day for agriculture came the previous day.
“It is difficult to complain that agriculture isn’t in this budget because the story for agriculture came yesterday,” he said budget night.
“Yesterday was certainly very good news. Talking to farmers, they are very relieved that the government indicated it was sensitive to the crises we have in agriculture, both in the cattle industry and the rest of agriculture.”
