OTTAWA – The Reform party launched its “fresh start” election campaign platform last week with promises of a leaner agriculture bureaucracy, more marketing choices for farmers and less government spending.
A Reform government would make the Canadian Wheat Board voluntary, ending its export monopoly for both wheat and barley.
It would encourage supply management farmers to prepare for greater competition, likely undermining the ability to set prices based on cost of production and possibly setting the stage for a two-price system.
It would get rid of more Agriculture Canada bureaucrats, pull the federal department out of programs and services the provinces provide and reduce the amount of money Ottawa is now trying to collect as fees from farmers.
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“Our role, if we form the next federal government, is to ensure the industry remains solid and prosperous and able to adapt to changes that are coming,” Reform agriculture critic Elwin Hermanson said in an interview from his Saskatchewan farm Oct. 18.
The previous day, leader Preston Manning had released the party’s election platform at a rally in London, Ont., in an area of Central Canada where Reform hopes to pick up votes from the Liberals in an election expected sometime in the next year.
On the menu
The overall plan would see: A balanced budget by March 31, 1999; a $2,000 cut in average family taxes by the year 2000; a drop of $15 billion a year in spending by ending welfare and equalization transfers to the provinces and by getting rid of such departments as regional economic expansion; selling such crown corporations as Canada Post, Via Rail and most of the CBC.
Hermanson said Reform’s policy on the Canadian Wheat Board would be to make sure that farmers who decide to market outside the board cannot “be in and out” at the same time, but the elected board would decide how those rules could be written and how long an opting-out farmer would have to stay out.
“We think this would give farmers a choice and still make the board a strong selling agency, less secretive.”
On supply management, “we have no secret agenda, we will not be heavy handed.”
He said future trade deals will expose dairy and poultry sector farmers increasingly to trade competition.#They will have to price more product on a world market basis, but if consumers agree, there could be a two-price system for domestic sales.
“I’m not sure how that would be worked out,” said the MP. “But rather than fearing and resisting change, we say let’s look at it as a stepping stone.”
Hermanson said research is one area in which Reform could increase agriculture spending. Some of the money saved by reducing the size of the bureaucracy could be put into research “although we are not talking vast sums here.”
