OTTAWA – Based on its first week under the Parliament Hill political spotlight, the government decision to kill the Crow Benefit subsidy will sail through the system with little controversy.
Two separate Commons committees held hearings on the July 31 death of the Western Grain Transportation Act and the Liberals emerged with barely a bruise.
“What I hear is different from what I had expected,” Saskatchewan Reform MP Allan Kerpan told agriculture minister Ralph Goodale April 25. “It surprised me somewhat the lack of resistance by some farm groups in Saskatchewan.”
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federal government proposed several months ago to increase the compensation rate from 80 to 90 per cent and double the maximum payment from $3 million to $6 million
Over the next two days, those farm groups confirmed the point.
On April 26, National Farmers Union president Nettie Wiebe told a committee that while the NFU believes it was a bad decision, it will turn its attentions to trying to make the best of a bad situation. “We have to work to get the transportation system right.”
She called the end of the WGTA “shock therapy” started by the Liberals without any idea of the impact.
One of the stated Liberal goals is to encourage diversification on the Prairies, she noted. Yet there is little evidence the WGTA slowed diversification and the reduction in farm income because of loss of the subsidy will make diversification more difficult.
Less cash available
“We will have lower income and less money to get on with diversification and value-added,” said Wiebe.
A day later, Prairie Pools Inc. came to Parliament Hill with much the same point. They disagree with the decision but rather than fight it, they will work with the government to try to make the best of it.
“Farmers realize the coffers are dry so to keep fighting for something that isn’t there is not in the best interests of anybody,” said PPI chair and Saskatchewan Wheat Pool vice-president Ray Howe.
Committee chair and Liberal MP Wayne Easter, a former NFU president, told the PPI delegation that the fight is over.
“We don’t want to get into those old squabbles,” he said.
“Let’s work together,” agreed Howe.
The closest the government came to being criticized occurred when NDP MP Len Taylor told Goodale the Liberals had unleashed dramatic prairie change without a vision of how it really would affect the farm sector.
Goodale responded aggressively, accusing Taylor of playing politics because of a looming Saskatchewan provincial election.
Still, for all the easy ride, Howe said after his appearance before MPs that if this gamble turns out to be bad for the Prairies, the Liberals will pay a price.
“The jury is still out and will be for awhile,” he said.
“There will be an election in a few years …. There are some political careers staked on what happens. Farmers won’t forget.”
