Federal agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief last week offered a small concession in the design of the proposed new farm safety net program and predicted that nine provinces will agree to implement by April 1.
Without much fanfare or publicity, he told provincial agriculture ministers in a conference call March 3 that a proposed new Net Income Stabilization Account plan will allow insurance claims for all losses.
Originally, farmers were expected to absorb the first five percent of decline in their production margin.
“We have made some changes in response to what the industry said,” Vanclief told reporters March 4 after a speech to the Toronto Board of Trade.
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“We will be demonstrating to farmers not only our determination and desire that there be a risk management program for them as they go into the new year (but) we will be demonstrating how it will work and I’m convinced it will work very much in their favour.”
Vanclief also said that based on the conference call with the provinces, nine provinces that signed a Jan. 31 communiqué agreeing to the principle of an April 1 launch still are onside. Only Quebec will not sign.
Quickly, both of Vanclief’s assertions were challenged.
Ontario agriculture minister Helen Johns said she has made it clear she will not sign by April 1 if provincial farm groups do not want her to sign. She said at least three other provinces took the same position.
“I think Ontario groups will not be ready to go,” she said.
“They will ask me not to sign and I will not. I think Quebec won’t sign and at least two other provinces won’t sign. The minister should have taken no comfort from that.”
And the day he made his comments, Vanclief also met with the Ontario Federation of Agriculture and heard first-hand that his changes are not enough.
In a March 5 letter to Vanclief after the meeting, OFA president Ron Bonnett said farmers are uncomfortable accepting a five-year program whose detail and consequences are not known.
