When agriculture minister Chuck Strahl faces Parliament again Sept. 18, he will hear some criticism of his $550 million Options program for low-income farm families, and not all of it will come from the opposition.
Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound Conservative MP Larry Miller says the program has not been getting good reviews from Ontario farmers and has caused some divisions in rural communities.
“The new Options program has not been going over well in Ontario,” he said Sept. 1. “The main issue is the $50,000 and I’ve written a letter to the minister suggesting we need to look at this. Some work should be done on that program.”
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The program offers farm families with total gross farm revenues of at least $50,000 and total net income from all sources of less than $25,000 in 2005, or individual farmers with net income of less than $15,000, a cheque to raise them to that level. To be eligible for help in the second year of the program, the farmer must agree to take a skills upgrading course or take business counselling and create a farm business plan.
Miller said setting a $50,000 farm revenue threshold has led to many complaints that the program will exclude farmers who need the help most.
“The complaint is that this program is missing some it should not miss and is not dealing with the real issue, which is low prices and foreign subsidies,” said the second-term MP. “I have heard one estimate that 96 percent of farmers won’t be eligible. I don’t know if that is accurate but that certainly is the concern.”
Because many describe it as a welfare program for farmers, it has caused rural resentment and division.
“The feeling out there is that this is welfare and farmers don’t want welfare. They want fair prices and a return for what they do,” said Miller. “But that word goes through rural communities like a cancer and it really does cause hard feelings and suspicion.”
Liberal agriculture critic Wayne Easter has condemned the program for implicitly suggesting low farm incomes are the result of unskilled or inefficient farmers rather than failed programs and markets. He has called it a blaming the victim program and will be denouncing it in Parliament.
New Democrat agriculture critic Alex Atamanenko said the program is a step in the right direction but sets the eligibility bar too high with the $50,000 minimum farm revenues.
Strahl has defended the revenue requirement as a way to ensure that owners of hobby farms don’t benefit from a program aimed at farmers.
“It just seems to me that with that entry level, too many will fall through the cracks,” said Atamanenko. “I’m also wondering if the retraining requirement really is just another bureaucratic hoop to discourage farmers from applying.”
Miller said that after a summer of listening to farmers and constituents of his large rural riding, he has concluded farmers are happy with the amount of support the Conservative government is promising through various programs.
“It’s not a question of the money,” said the Conservative MP. “Farmers overall are happy with the amount of money we have pledged. It is the delivery that brings the criticism.”
