REGINA (Staff) – Saskatchewan Wheat Pool president Leroy Larsen said the pool argued a year ago that surpluses in the Gross Revenue Insurance Plan should have been left in the program to help farmers.
“Farmers would not have been required to make any paybacks,” Larsen said last week after the program’s final settlements were announced.
However, both the federal and provincial governments decided not to take that advice. They each took their share of the $782 million surplus, returning only part of it to farmers through agriculture programs.
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Ottawa’s share was $326 million, while the province got $195 million. Producers shared $261 million, less deductions for 1994 premiums, 1993 overpayments and other amounts owing.
The federal government put $150 million back into agriculture programs. Of this, $100 million is being used for the whole-farm NISA program and $50 million will be a one-time contribution to the crop sector program.
In Saskatchewan, the government put $130 million back into agriculture, including:
- $72 million over three years to cover provincial government premiums for new safety net programs.
- $40 million to start the crop sector program.
- $18 million for the Agri-Food Innovation Fund.
- The remaining $65 million was put into general revenues.
Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities president Sinclair Harrison said the province’s agriculture sector has come out the loser.
“In other provinces these dollars were earmarked for agriculture, and they went into agriculture,” Harrison said. “The fact that we’ve got some slippage with $65 million going back into the general treasury to be spent on all programs we feel, as an agriculture sector, we have lost in this process.”
Liberal MLA Harvey McLane said: “They took some of the farmers’ own money and put it into general revenues and balanced the budget on the backs of rural Saskatchewan.”
The government said it paid $426 per capita to support farm programs in 1995-96, compared with $179 in Alberta and $155 in Manitoba, and continues to allocate a greater percentage of its total budget to agriculture than any other government in Canada.
