Saskatchewan farmers will get emergency aid this year. But it might not be as much as they want or need.
Agriculture minister Clay Serby last week vowed that farmers will receive the provincial portion, about $75 million, of the recently announced federal-provincial package.
Whether they will receive Ottawa’s share, about $115 million, remains to be seen.
That’s because Saskatchewan has yet to sign the new Canadian Farm Income Program. That three-year cost-shared program would, in an average year, add between $150 million and $200 million to farmers’ pockets.
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Federal agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief says until the province signs on to CFIP it won’t get any federal emergency money.
“Saskatchewan signed the agreement at the federal-provincial ministers’ meeting in Fredericton (last) July,” Vanclief said. “They signed an agreement and it is my expectation when someone signs an agreement, they live up to it.”
But Serby said Vanclief only hinted during discussions that the emergency aid was contingent upon signing CFIP and he wants to see it in writing.
“There was no decision made on the fact that these two initiatives were tied,” Serby said March 15. “If that’s Mr. Vanclief’s position, then he should communicate that to me in writing. To date I don’t have that.”
He also said the provinces signed only a general framework agreement last July, which says they must have the endorsement of their cabinets and treasury boards to participate.
Saskatchewan wants to send out its emergency money quickly and would like to use the province’s crop insurance corporation to do that. Last year’s aid was delivered that way.
“This is not rocket science,” Serby said. “We have a mechanism to deliver the money. We need agreement on how much that money should be.”
The minister said he won’t be dragged into another program that doesn’t benefit grains and oilseeds producers. CFIP is known as the “son of AIDA”, the Agricultural Income Disaster Assistance program.
Many grain producers didn’t qualify for money under that program, despite declining prices and rising costs of production.
Serby said Saskatchewan won’t make the same mistake twice.
He added he will maintain his position unless producers tell him he should do otherwise.
“If my farmers in Saskatchewan and the official opposition … are prepared to make a universal statement in Saskatchewan that the province should be investing in a program that doesn’t meet their needs, and that chorus gets deafeningly loud, then I think we may have to go down that path,” he said.
All other provinces have either signed CFIP or have said they will, said a federal spokesperson.
