He is making no promises, but federal agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief says he knows farmers are calling for more support and he will do what he can to convince the government to listen.
Unlike other years, the loudest calls for help are coming this year from his own province of Ontario, where low commodity prices and bad weather are inflicting the worst year in a generation on the province’s politically influential farmers.
Vanclief said with “the ink barely dry” on a new three-year farm safety net pact signed with provinces in July, it is too early to promise farmers significant changes.
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“What they can expect from me is that I will keep fighting on their behalf, as I have done,” he said in an interview. “I have already briefed cabinet on the situation that is there. As a cabinet, we will look at what is needed and possible.”
Opposition MPs last week vowed to keep the pressure up when Parliament reconvenes Sept. 18 for its final session before an expected spring election. The Liberals will be trying to hang onto the more than a score of rural Ontario seats they won in 1997, which gave them a majority.
Canadian Alliance agriculture critic Howard Hilstrom said the fastest way the Liberals could help prairie farmers is to inject more commercial competition into the grain transportation by reducing the Canadian Wheat Board’s role.
“It is a mess, as we said it would be when the Liberals were rushing this (new regulations) through the House in June,” he said from his Manitoba constituency. “We will be making that our primary issue.”
On the agenda
New Democrat critic Dick Proctor said grain hauling problems and low farm income will be issues.
“You don’t hear much from farmers now because they are in the field but once it’s in the bin, they get out their calculators and figure out what’s left after low prices and fuel bills, there will be an uproar.”
Proctor said there is a feeling on the Prairies that government would be less sensitive if it was the usual western problem but this year’s Ontario protests, along with the looming election, may pry more money out of government for all regions.
This summer, thousands of Ontario farmers turned out at meetings to voice frustration over the prospect of low income, inadequate safety nets and large competing subsidies in the United States and European Union.
When Vanclief reminded a meeting in his home town of Belleville that the government has increased safety net spending from $600 million in 1996 to $1.1 billion, Ontario Federation of Agriculture vice-president Bill Mailloux reminded him that in the late 1980s, government support was worth $4 billion.
Southwestern Ontario Liberal MP Jerry Pickard said MPs have heard through the farm meetings that farmers are angry about high foreign subsidies and what they believe is an inadequate Canadian response.
“The message that we have been hearing is that farmers feel they are not being well served,” he said. “They expect a safety net system that is there and adequate when they need it. If that involves increasing the base, so be it.”
In Winnipeg last month, Canadian Federation of Agriculture president Bob Friesen said the government should put another $300 million into the safety net base.
Vanclief wants the government to prepare for farmers a list of programs available and how they can be used.
