It costs money to find out what farmers think, says a senior
Agriculture Canada official responding to complaints about the
department’s $15 million policy consultation budget.
“There’s two ways of approaching consultations,” said Yaprak
Baltacioglu, assistant deputy agriculture minister in charge of
strategic policy.
“One, we can do them very narrowly, we can just work with a very narrow
list of farm leaders. Or we can open up this debate so we can hear
everybody.”
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She said the $15 million, two-year budget is allowing a broad
cross-section of the food industry to offer opinions on Canada’s new
agriculture strategy. As many as 1,000 people had taken part in the
consultation by early May.
“It’s hard to answer whether you can do consultations without spending
any money because engagement takes support,” said Baltacioglu.
“Right now, if we tell farmers ‘come to a meeting with your own money,
spend your whole day here and we won’t feed you, we won’t give you
lunch, nor will we pay your way’, I don’t think that we can engage a
lot of people.”
Liberal MPs on the House of Commons agriculture committee said they
expect a full accounting from the department on how the money is spent.
It was promised.
Ontario Liberal Paul Steckle said farmers may be feeling
“overconsulted” because of studies by House and Senate agriculture
committees, as well as the Liberal task force on agriculture and now
Agriculture Canada.
He said the total travel and consultation budget for all Commons
committees is less than $3 million. And farmers are angry at what they
see as too little income support from government.
“One has to wonder,” he told Agriculture Canada officials. “Given the
constraints, it just doesn’t sell very well out in rural Canada.”
Liberal Rose-Marie Ur said farmers in her riding aren’t happy and news
of a $15 million consultation budget has not helped.
Baltacioglu said there have been “a lot of misconceptions around that
number.” She said it includes consultation, communication “and other
outreach activities that may be required to build an agriculture policy
framework.”
She said agriculture is a big industry and it costs money to consult
all sectors.
“It’s large,” Ur agreed. “But they’re slowly dwindling because we
haven’t got a policy there to sustain them. We’re losing our farmers.”
