Design and funding rules for a new farm disaster program are becoming significant obstacles to an agreement as federal and provincial agriculture ministers gather in British Columbia next week to try to sign a new agricultural policy framework.
Provinces appear united in insisting Ottawa commit to paying at least 75 percent of the disaster-funding bill before they will sign a general agreement to create a program.
Federal agriculture minister Chuck Strahl is insisting that except in huge disasters such as BSE or hoof-and-mouth disease, the traditional 60-40 federal-provincial split should prevail.
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“I am concerned this is one area where it will be difficult to achieve consensus and I’m not sure what that will do to the goals of the meeting,” B.C. agriculture minister Pat Bell, co-chair of the meeting June 28-29, said in a June 15 interview.
Failure to find enough agreement to at least sign a general framework agreement would be a setback for Strahl and the Conservative government, since the existing APF expires at the end of March 2008.
Federal-provincial negotiations have been underway for more than a year and agreements on some changes to business risk management programs have been reached.
And Strahl heads to Whistler, B.C., arguing that farmers expect agreements on the outline of the next generation of farm programs, even if all the details are not clear.
“My hope is we are going to end up with (agreement on) a new Canadian ag plan,” Strahl said in a June 14 interview. “Farmers expect that. A key part of that will be a replacement for the CAIS (Canadian Agricultural Income Stabilization) program. The message we got out of consultations is that farmers want a sector that is vibrant and not just viable or not just limping along.”
Bell said he hopes there is enough consensus to at least sign a general principles document.
But Ontario agriculture minister Leona Dombrowsky said she is not prepared to commit to signing a new APF agreement unless details on some key issues are worked out.
There are several fault lines emerging:
- The chasm between the two sides in their expectations over the design of the disaster program addition to business risk management.
- Ontario’s insistence that the new APF include the concept of federally co-funded provincial companion programs that were phased out years ago.
Strahl is adamantly opposed and Bell believes Dombrowsky will create a distraction to the main goal of finding enough agreement to sign a new deal.
“I just think we should hesitate to clutter up the agenda with too many items because we already have a lot on our plate and we want this to succeed,” he said. “Farmers expect this to succeed.”
- In Toronto, Dombrowsky said she also takes to the table a demand that any new funding formula ensures that Ontario, Canada’s largest agricultural province, get its “fair share” of national funding.
As well, she wants a commitment to regulatory reform.
Bell said he wants national agricultural policy to stress environmental and science innovation as well as income support.
“There is a tendency to focus on business risk management and I’m hoping the other pillars can receive their due,” he said.
Meanwhile in Ottawa, the House of Commons agriculture committee appears poised to sideline itself from influencing the debate over the next APF. It has struggled over a report on the issue and with Parliament adjourning for the summer this week, the report may not be tabled until autumn when decisions will have been made.
The committee has spent months, hundreds of hours and tens of thousands of dollars touring the country and hearing witnesses on APF.
But the standoff between the minority Conservatives and the majority opposition on the committee has delayed the completion of the committee report.
The key disagreement is insistence by Liberal Wayne Easter that the new APF give farmers the collective right to choose orderly marketing and Conservative David Anderson’s insistence orderly marketing be an individual choice.
