The official version of Agriculture Canada’s performance in the last
fiscal year tells of uninterrupted success, according to the
department’s self-appraisal presented to Parliament in November.
Spending in 2001-02 was 35 percent higher than projected, according to
a departmental performance report given to MPs.
Instead of the budgeted $1.831 billion for the year ended March 31,
2002, actual spending was $2.474 billion. The increase was due mainly
to $550 million in payments under the Canadian Farm Income Program.
But beyond the financial report, the department told Parliament that it
Read Also
Agriculture ministers agree to AgriStability changes
federal government proposed several months ago to increase the compensation rate from 80 to 90 per cent and double the maximum payment from $3 million to $6 million
had scored some major policy successes during the year.
It said the department developed a “comprehensive national policy
agenda” that addressed the industry’s need for innovation, and
consumers’ growing demand for safe food produced in an environmentally
friendly way.
“Our comprehensive national policy agenda, with its common national
goals, addresses Canadians’ priorities and offers the tools to ensure a
viable future for the entire Canadian agricultural and agri-food
sector,” said the report.
There was no mention of a strategy to ensure farms are profitable.
In his introduction, agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief makes it sound
as if the year produced a new national agriculture policy.
“The agricultural policy framework was agreed to in principle by all
provinces and territories in June 2001,” he wrote, referring to a
general agreement in Whitehorse.
“Following federal-provincial-territorial negotiations over the winter
of 2001-02, the framework was ratified in June 2002. Details of the
framework have been developed through consultations with key
stakeholders in the industry.”
In fact, just seven provinces signed the agreement in June in Halifax.
Almost five months later, no concrete program details have been
negotiated, provinces are calling for a federal-provincial meeting and
farm groups are demanding a one-year extension of existing safety net
programs because there is not enough time to design new programs for
2003.
That is not what Vanclief told Parliament in his annual performance
report.
“We are putting in place a comprehensive risk assessment and management
system for our farm financial programs,” Vanclief wrote in the report
to MPs and the public.
Balderdash, said Progressive Conservative agriculture critic Rick
Borotsik. Where is the program detail he asked Nov. 14 in an interview
from his Brandon riding.
“We hear all these great promises but there still are no details,” he
said. “And this great new funding is no more than has already been
there. This is not real.”
