The federal government soon will announce details of a one-time aid program for low-income farm families.
It is believed the program could be worth several hundred million dollars if all or most eligible farmers apply for the benefit. As many as 20,000 low-income farm families could be eligible to apply for help.
“I should have something to announce very shortly,” agriculture minister Chuck Strahl said June 22. “Within days, I should have the details approved.”
Under the program, the government will set a minimum income for farm families. One possibility would be the Statistics Canada-calculated poverty line. In 2004, the federal agency said the poverty line for a rural family of four was $26,015.
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After the target family income is announced, farmers with family income below the threshold, based on 2005 income tax filing, will be able to apply.
Once the family income is determined by officials to be below the threshold, the government will make up the difference with “no more questions asked,” according to Strahl.
“It has to be targeted to bona fide farmers, not hobby farmers but people that are trying to make a living on the farm,” the minister said last week. “The other criteria has to be an income base, based on income tax returns and full family income. That’s the principle of it.”
He said it is a one-time offer to families who “have fallen through the cracks of programs that have existed. Canadians understand there’s a certain number of them and my understanding is there may be 20,000 farm families that find themselves in that boat.”
Strahl would not speculate on the expected cost of the program “but it will be significant, no doubt about it.” The money will come from $500 million in new government agricultural funding announced in the March 2 Conservative budget.
Strahl said it has taken several months to get approval because it is a new program that required fresh thinking: “It has never been done before.”
Meanwhile, the Senate agriculture committee announced last week it, too, will be turning the spotlight on poor farm and rural families.
In the autumn, the committee will begin hearings in Ottawa and across the country on rural poverty.
“It will be based on our concern about rural poverty and the effect it is having on the people and on the communities of our country,” committee chair Joyce Fairbairn told a news conference June 22.
Rookie Conservative senator Hugh Segal, who has been promoting the idea of a guaranteed minimum income in rural Canada, said the issue goes far beyond farming into fisheries, forestry and other rural resource sectors that have been suffering.
He said there are as many as two million rural Canadians living in poverty.
“We want to get a focus on that to understand precisely what’s happening and what the instruments are available to government and the private sector to make a contribution that will ensure that none of our Canadian colleagues and fellow citizens living in rural Canada are forced to live under the poverty line,” said Segal.
Existing levels of rural poverty “are simply unacceptable in a country as wealthy as we are.”
He said for those who might object to a poverty-related payment to farmers, most Canadians have access to programs including GST rebates and employment insurance or other programs that help when jobs are lost or incomes are low.
When it was suggested at the news conference that farm failures are simply the free enterprise economic system at work, Segal responded that he doesn’t want to see a system that offers “socialism with government support for the big companies and raw free enterprise with people falling through the cracks for little folks.”
