The controversial Pest Management Regulatory Agency will be running budget deficits for at least the next few years but farmers will not be asked to pick up the tab through higher user fees, MPs were assured last week.
In fact, senior PMRA officials told a parliamentary committee that a deficit looms because the agency is not raising as much in user fees as expected.
Instead of $12 million annually out of a $27 million budget, user fees are bringing in $8 million.
Elizabeth Javor, manager of business line improvement for the PMRA, told the House of Commons agriculture committee May 28 the agency must either receive more money from Health Canada or reduce services to cover its shortfall.
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It is projecting a budget deficit at least until 2001.
“We are not looking at increased user fees as an option,” she said.
The PMRA, created in 1995 as a stand-alone pesticide registration agency under the jurisdiction of Health Canada, has been under almost constant attack from farmers.
Their complaints range from the damaging impact of user fees to the size of the PMRA bureaucracy and what some farmers have seen as the slow pace of approving new chemicals and clearing up the waiting list.
Officials of the agency offered a vigorous defence of their record of keeping costs down and making the system more efficient.
There have been “amazing” improvements in three years, Wendy Sexsmith, director of alternative strategies and regulatory affairs, told the committee.
Skeptics speak up
Not all MPs were convinced.
Southern Ontario Liberal Rose-Marie Ur noted the deficits and continued farmer complaints that they do not have access to the same range of chemicals at competitive prices as do Americans.
“As a farmer, if I made this kind of progress … I’d be out of business,” she said.
Sexsmith and Javor begged to differ. They said the PMRA has done a good job in:
- Reducing its proposed budget to $27 million from $34 million and keeping a cap on user fees.
- Reducing the backlog of unapproved registration applications to 200 from 1,000 with a clean-up expected by September.
- Reducing the time it takes to approve a registration application from several years to 18 months, if all the documentation is adequate.
- Getting approval time for applications made jointly in the United States and Canada down to 12 months.
- Doubling the number of minor-use chemicals approved for use in Canada.
To her political critics, Sexsmith said: “If that isn’t improvement, I would like to understand what you think improvement is.”
And when eastern Ontario Liberal Larry McCormick complained about the impact of user fees on farmers, Javor essentially told him to look in the mirror.
It is his government that has made user fees part of the landscape, she said.
“User fees are not pleasant for anyone,” she said. But they are government policy. “As bureaucrats, we implement government policy.”
Although Health Canada is the primary government funding department, Agriculture Canada has pledged $15 million over four years to keep user fees down.
