INFLUENTIAL rural Liberal MP Paul Steckle, chair of the House of Commons agriculture committee, was succinct.
The Canadian cattle industry had many sympathetic ears on Parliament Hill when representatives asked for taxpayer help, because they rarely do it.
When Ottawa’s beef industry compensation program is announced this week, the political reaction is more likely be to “why so little?” rather than “why?”
“These people don’t make a habit of asking for help,” Steckle said after a committee hearing on industry woes in the aftermath of Alberta’s sole case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy. “When they come asking, you sit up and take notice. They have credibility on this file.”
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In the hothouse of Ottawa, it is easy to become jaded by demands for help.
An MP once joked about a farmer who had appeared yet again before the Commons agriculture committee to warn that the prairie grain industry was on the brink. This would be his last year of farming for sure unless Ottawa came through.
“How many times can you go bankrupt?” the prairie MP said later. “This may be a record. Call Guinness.”
That would be the record keepers, not the beer company.
The cattle industry will never set a record for aid demands. In fact, the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association has worn it as a badge of pride that it believes in coping with the ups and downs of the market without the cushion of a government safety net.
So the testimony of need from the industry this month was dramatic.
“We are not alarmists by nature and did not seek support this past year when the 2001-2002 drought resulted in record and sustained losses in the feeding sector,” CCA executive vice-president Dennis Laycraft told MPs.
Help is needed now that BSE has added to the drought fallout. “A quick response may cost millions, failure will cost billions.”
Ben Thorlakson, an Airdrie, Alta., feedlot operator, told MPs that the 2002 drought cost him more than any other event. “Last year, my own personal loss if I recall correctly, and I’m working hard to forget, was somewhere in the neighbourhood of $3 million.”
He did not ask for help.
This year, he is. “I’m concerned about myself, of course, but I’m very concerned about a group of young feedlot producers that have put all their money on the line on purchasing facilities and expanding farms so that they can develop the critical mass to be a competitive cattle feeder. They are in severe jeopardy.”
It was a powerful message from a group famous for not crying wolf, resolute in their skepticism about government solutions, fearful of government aid that might lead to trade challenges.
Now, they face the ultimate trade difficulty – closed borders.
They feel they have no option but to ask for government help.
And politicians, more accustomed to chronic demanders, seem only too happy to promise aid. They know it will not be a down payment on future demands.
“These are people who don’t come to us unless they are desperate,” said Steckle. “When they ask, they deserve our attention.”
