HALIFAX, N.S. – Agriculture minister Ralph Goodale last week ran into a solid wall of skepticism when he tried to convince Canadian farm leaders that the federal budget treated them fairly.
In what Canadian Federation of Agriculture president Jack Wilkinson called a “measured response”, farmers told him the $1 billion in projected cuts to farm spending will be hard to swallow.
Wilkinson said that in compensation, the government must be prepared to act quickly on farmer demands for efficiencies and regulatory reform that will help them keep costs low or give them access to new inputs needed to compete.
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“It will have to come quickly to put some margins back into farm income,” he told the minister. “A hell of a lot of cash flow disappeared in this last budget.”
In the first stop on a national tour to sell the “strong tonic” budget, Goodale told the CFA annual meeting Feb. 28 the cuts were needed to fight the growing public debt.
He insisted the projected $445 million cut from the Agriculture Canada budget, the end of the $560 million Crow Benefit subsidy, a reduction in safety net spending and research does not make the department or the sector a “victim” of the deficit fight.
“These cuts are not out of whack with what is being asked of everyone else,” said Goodale, after reciting the spending cuts imposed on other departments.
Critics not buying
His critics, while polite, made it clear they did not buy the argument.
“My reading of the figures is very different from yours,” said Laurent Pellerin, president of l’Union des Producteurs Agricoles in Quebec. “I have the feeling you are asking more from us than from others.”
Eric Fridfinnson from Manitoba Pool Elevators told the minister that on his own farm north of Winnipeg, loss of the Crow Benefit could add almost $30,000 to the cost of moving grain from his 1,600 seeded acres to market.
Dairy farmer spokesperson Peter Oosterhoff accused the Liberals of abandoning their commitment to supply management by reducing the dairy subsidy 30 percent and abandoning responsibility for some other services traditionally provided to the industry.
