SASKATOON — Four months after its work was to be done, the producer payment panel is finally going to release the first of its two reports.
The six-member panel headed by Ed Tyrchniewicz was appointed by the previous Progressive Conservative government last summer. Its job is to figure out the best way of paying the annual Crow Benefit subsidy to farmers.
It was originally supposed to complete its work by the end of November, but the deadline has been extended several times.
At a meeting in Winnipeg March 9-10, the panel reviewed a final draft of the technical report and then announced plans to release it to the industry and the public at the end of March.
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One thing farmers won’t see in the report is a specific recommendation on how to pay the subsidy to producers, Tyrchniewicz said in an interview. That’s being saved for the final report, which he expects to give to agriculture minister Ralph Goodale in late April or early May.
The 160-page technical report will include 10 chapters of analysis of the producer payment issue, covering familiar topics like resource neutrality, equity among producers, international trade issues and administration of different payment proposals.
It will be sent for comment to everyone who participated in the study or submitted a brief. Two or three weeks after that, the final report will be written and sent to Goodale.
Tyrchniewicz said the biggest chapter, and the only real new ground broken in the report is a detailed study of how the new General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade affects the Western Grain Transportation Act and the method of payment.
“To the best of my knowledge I don’t think anyone has done this kind of analysis,” he said.
Tyrchniewicz doesn’t expect the technical report to be all that controversial, filled as it is with economic models and analysis.
