REGINA – Cheques totaling $40.1 million went out last week to 35,000 Saskatchewan farmers entitled to part of the Gross Revenue Insurance Plan surplus.
Provincial agriculture minister Eric Upshall said 39,384 farmers were entitled to cheques, but about 4,000 of those will see their payments applied to outstanding crop insurance premiums instead.
As well, 11,727 farmers were sent bills totaling $11.76 million. The money is owed because some farmers’ 1993 overpayments and 1994 unpaid premiums are less than their entitled share of the surplus.
The opposition parties said those bills should never have gone out, because both premier Roy Romanow and former agriculture minister Darrel Cunningham said during last June’s election campaign that farmers would never have to make repayments.
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
Letter sent out
However, Upshall said no campaign promise has been broken because letters sent to GRIP participants in September 1994 and January 1995 both said repayments would have to be made.
“I’m not going to get into the discussion of promises made, promises broken,” Upshall said. “It was very clear … the promise was in the two letters. Had there been a change during the election to the program, producers would have been notified.”
But Liberal agriculture critic Harvey McLane said Cunningham promised in the legislature in March 1995 that farmers would not have to pay back 1993 overpayments.
“Maybe there’s some legal avenue here we’ll have to explore to get this thing solved because the people of rural Saskatchewan are not prepared to take these kinds of hits anymore,” McLane said. “How legally binding is what’s said in the legislative assembly?”
Unfair distribution
McLane also said the GRIP surplus was distributed unfairly.
“People that don’t even know if they’re getting a bill or not are saying it’s wrong. They don’t care whether it’s a $100 bill or a $1,000 bill or a $5,000 or a $10,000. It’s wrong.”
He has called on farmers to send their bills to him and he will deliver them to Upshall.
Tory MLA Dan D’Autremont said changes the NDP government made to GRIP in 1992 have hurt farmers.
“What we have here is another chapter in the ongoing saga of Roy’s rural revenge,” he said. “If those contracts had not been broken, there wouldn’t be a single farmer today getting a bill for an overpayment.”
Saskatchewan Wheat Pool president Leroy Larsen said while farmers who receive bills are disappointed, it would be equally disappointing for others to be shortchanged.
“GRIP has been a less than popular program from day one,” Larsen said. “It was certainly not well understood.”
Of the farmers receiving cheques, 26,200, or 66 percent, will receive less than $1,000. About 700 farmers will get more than $5,000. About 9,100 (78 percent) of farmers getting bills owe less than $1,000, while 300 producers owe more than $5,000.
