THE MOST eye-popping paragraph in last week’s federal auditor general’s report on the mess that has been the Canadian Agricultural Income Stabilization program was this: “During our review of a sample of the 2004 program year applications, we found one payment made to a producer that increased by more than $90,000 due to a change in processing procedure.
“This change occurred after almost 20 percent of the applications for the 2004 program year had already been processed. The department told us they did not specifically inform producers whose applications had already been processed of this change nor did it inform them of the effect it may have had on their program benefits.”
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This is from a report tabled in Parliament May 1.
The second eye-popper was the revelation that some CAIS employees saw nothing wrong with moonlighting as paid consultants to help farmers navigate the dense complexities of CAIS rules to help them trigger bigger payments.
“Individuals with detailed knowledge of these tests could use that knowledge to manipulate the data in producers’ CAIS applications and to trigger payments,” said the report from auditor general Sheila Fraser.
A handful of employees were ordered to stop playing both sides of the line for profit but the amazing thing is that the CAIS administration either didn’t know about it or didn’t think it a problem until the auditors uncovered the potential conflict of interest.
The third eye-popper was that Fraser’s office found CAIS administrators often arbitrarily change information in farmer applications, usually to reduce their payments. Farmers typically are not informed of those changes and if they want to appeal, are expected to figure out the change from CAIS information received.
This is manna from accounting heaven for the governing Conservatives. They quickly agreed with all the auditor general conclusions and insisted this is why they opposed CAIS, supported farmer complaints and plan to change it.
It is no coincidence that there wasn’t a single opposition Liberal question last week on what the government plans to do about the damning CAIS report.
This was a Liberal fiasco, imposed with provincial complicity by a strong-willed federal bureaucracy pushing around a weak political class. Farmers lined up against the CAIS model from the beginning and were essentially brushed off.
Canadian Federation of Agriculture president Bob Friesen was one of those who warned from the beginning that the CAIS model was flawed. Its margin-based payment system presumed a cyclical farm economy that has not existed in most sectors for years and its decision to get rid of the Net Income Stabilization Account program and provincial companion programs would reduce farmer benefits.
Last week, he may have taken grim satisfaction from an “I told you so” reaction.
“As the auditor general observed, the program’s objective is to protect the income of producers,” he said in a statement. “What is clear from her report, right now that focus has been lost in the department. We hope this will change the culture in federal and provincial departments regarding how programs are developed and administered.”
A fine hope indeed but one more likely to resonate in the partisan political classes than in the bureaucracy with its deep suspicion of farmer claims and a clear understanding that while politicians come and go, the bureaucracy is forever.
