IT’S A common knock on politicians that they will inevitably turn times of crises into opportunities for political gain instead of offering real assistance. Sometimes this criticism is justified, sometimes not.
But federal agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief’s decision to bind bovine spongiform encephalopathy aid to his government’s long-term agricultural plan is cause for outrage.
Vanclief and the federal government did step in with an additional $36 million in emergency aid to add to the already committed $460 million under the BSE recovery program to help Canada’s livestock sector deal with its most devastating crisis.
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But to use the situation as leverage to ram through other pet projects on the government agenda, which have met resistance from farm groups and some provinces, surely ranks as a low point in government benevolence.
In announcing the extension of the BSE recovery program last week, Vanclief also said there will be more help for producers in provinces that have signed on to implement Ottawa’s agricultural policy framework. The APF is an overall farm program with five aspects, including business risk management, which Vanclief has trotted out as the answer to cattle producers’ cash problems.
He has also offered advances on next year’s expected APF payouts to producers in provinces that have signed on.
In an ironic twist, one message producers may be able to read into Vanclief’s insistence on linking BSE aid to the APF is that the APF is floundering and cannot stand on its own merits.
But by tying BSE aid to it, the federal government has left cattle producers a choice to either pressure their provinces to sign or face a reduction in available aid.
Alberta, British Columbia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland have signed onto the program so far. Those refusing to sign include Saskatchewan, Ontario and Quebec.
In fact, Ontario agriculture minister Helen Johns has been adamant that she will not sign until farmers give her the go-ahead. An aide in her office has quoted her calling Ottawa’s tactics “unethical.”
Saskatchewan has also been holding out, echoing the advice of many farm groups, which say the risk management aspect is not well designed to cover emergencies.
That is a crucial point. The BSE crisis has demonstrated that it is unrealistic to expect a long-term income stabilization program to deal with dire situations. Longer-term programs can smooth some bumps in the road, but they don’t aim funding specifically at sectors suffering disaster.
People staring at bankruptcy through no fault of their own and an industry confronted by the possibility of large-scale collapse deserve better.
