The federal government has told Agriculture Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency that for the next two years, they will not be able to raise user fees on mandatory services offered to farmers and the food industry.
This extends a fee freeze, already in place for several years, to at least the end of 2002.
Critics, including some Liberal Party activists, welcomed the announcement but insisted the government should decrease some user fees, and not simply freeze them in place.
“In the deficit fight by the federal government, rural Canada has taken the hardest hit,” Prince Edward Island MP Wayne Easter said March 17 during a Liberal Party national policy conference debate on potato inspection fees. “There is a feeling that farmers would like to see user fees reduced, if not eliminated.”
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As agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief sat watching a few seats away, Easter said the user fee freeze is not enough. Delegates at the agriculture and rural policy workshop agreed by voting strongly to tell the government to reduce or eliminate potato inspection fees.
Canadian Federation of Agriculture president Bob Friesen took a similar position.
He said in an interview from Gander, Nfld., where he was attending a farm meeting, that the fee freeze is welcome but not the total answer.
“It’s good news and it’s bad news,” he said March 16. “A freeze means fees will not increase and that’s good news, but it also probably means the government will not be considering reducing user fees and that is what is needed.”
Vanclief announced the freeze in the House of Commons March 15 as part of a recitation of government aid to farmers.
Afterwards in an interview, he said bureaucrats may have been tempted to increase revenues by cranking up fees once the old freeze expired early this year.
“The department and the agency are always looking for sources of funds,” he said. “Unfortunately, we are never able to get as much out of the centre as we would like and there’s always increased demand for services so departments and agencies look around to see where they can get more money.
“What I said very clearly is that that is not a way we are going to get it, by increasing fees.”
Several weeks ago, when he announced an $83 million boost in funding for the Canadian Grain Commission, Vanclief also imposed a freeze in mandatory CGC fees until 2003.
However, the minister said the freeze applies only to mandatory services that farmers must accept, including inspection. Fees for voluntary services requested by farmers or food companies are not frozen.
Friesen said the government increased user fees to fight the deficit but now is the time for a “sober second look” at the burden these have imposed on the food industry.
He said farm input costs have increased 38 percent in recent years and government charges are an important part of that.
