VICTORIA – Manitoba agriculture minister Harry Enns came away from a meeting with his federal counterpart last week uneasy that Manitoba may be shafted on how seaway pooling adjustment funds are divided.
Along with Manitoba farm leaders, Enns worries that Sask-atchewan will get an undue share of the $105 million in federal money meant to compensate farmers on the eastern Prairies for changes in transportation fees.
Farmers previously pooled the costs of shipping to Thunder Bay, Ont. for grain headed through the St. Lawrence Seaway. Now farmers must also pay to ship grain farther up the seaway to ports where their grain can be loaded onto ocean-going vessels.
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“We are very disturbed that this might be tinkered with to help Saskatchewan,” the minister said in a July 4 interview.
Distribution method
Earlier, he had appealed directly to federal minister Ralph Goodale in private to distribute funds in the second and third years of the program according to expected future damage from the pooling change, and not on the basis of traditional grain production, as Saskatchewan wants.
Manitoba says if traditional production patterns are the measure, Saskatchewan will receive $6-$10 million more than it should. “It would reduce what is rightly coming to Manitoba,” said Enns.
Goodale agreed to have bureaucrats continue to work on the issue, but he was noncommittal about Manitoba’s claim.
“I just want to make sure the formula is logical and rational, that there is a good technical basis and that it is perceived as being fair,” he said in a separate interview.
Goodale said he would not “wade into the arguments on either side until I hear all the input … . We have some time to get this right. We are talking about spending a year or two down the road.”
Manitoba interests would like to see the issue settled this summer.
Enns said he is willing to give the bureaucrats time to work on the issue but he remains suspicious of political motives in Ottawa.
“I think Mr. Goodale is being immovable on this and as a longstanding politician, I am aware that in terms of grain, Saskat-chewan is the lead province to a large extent,” he said. “Their influence prevails in the policy-setting of the federal government and this federal minister.”
Harold Froese, chair of Manitoba’s transportation coalition, is more blunt.
“I think we have to recognize there is a close relationship between Saskatchewan farm groups and the federal government.”
Manitoba says if it wins its case, it will distribute some money to wheat and barley producers, and the rest among all farmers in the province.
