Ag Canada report doesn’t seem to match reality – Opinion

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Published: November 21, 2002

AND the winner in the ‘best creative fiction’ category of 2002

government publications goes to … Agriculture Canada for its 2001-02

performance report tabled in Parliament in early November.

It is a report to MPs and the public about the successes and failures

of the agriculture department during the last fiscal year. What

happened, according to the official version?

Well, nothing short of a brave new world in agriculture policy making

that will produce “a comprehensive national approach for the sector

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(to) ensure Canadians living and working in urban centres and rural

communities can compete internationally.”

It “seeks to simultaneously address the interests of citizens and

position the sector for long-term profitability. “

The result is a “comprehensive national policy agenda, with its common

national goals (which) addresses Canadians’ priorities and offers the

tools to ensure a viable future for the entire Canadian agricultural

and agri-food sector.”

Wow. These truly are the best of agricultural policy times, as the

bureaucrats of Agriculture Canada see it.

Funny, that. Reports from the field where the department’s agriculture

policy framework is supposed to be implemented, suggest a less certain

picture.

They may be the exceptions that prove the rule but these are recent

reports from the belly of the APF beast that did not get reflected in

the tabled report:

  • Farm leaders increasingly think the chance of putting flesh on these

goals by next spring to create workable and better policies is minimal.

They want an extension of existing programs for a year because the

gestation period has been longer than government bureaucrats predicted.

  • Provinces that have signed the APF are unhappy with Ottawa’s approach

to negotiating details of the APF programs. They are insisting on a

meeting with Ottawa to end the pattern of negotiating rules with each

province and offering different deals, even though the programs are

supposed to have national standards.

  • Despite the implication in the report to Parliament of a

“comprehensive national agenda,” three provinces still have not signed

on.

  • An insistence by departmental management that rules of APF must apply

to well-established exporters led to a tense meeting between

Agriculture Canada officials and exporters in late October.

  • Many departmental employees are unhappy about what they see as

growing bureaucratic control at the centre of the department that

diminishes the experience of long-time officials and excludes farmers

from the formula. “I would also appreciate confidentiality in this

message as the Deputy Minister is noted for not liking any sort of

criticism,” said a note from one senior internal critic.

Obviously, a report to Parliament about progress and performance is not

going to expose all the department’s dirty laundry. Still, it seems a

tad disingenuous to suggest to Parliament that the principles of the

APF are accepted, the reality of the APF is being implemented and

agriculture is launching into a new world of success and contentment

because of the forward thinking of Agriculture Canada.

Doesn’t Parliament demand some truth in advertising?

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