When Manitoba jumped the gun last week to announce a $25 acreage payment for unseeded acres, it was accompanied by the sound of a shoe slipping onto the other foot.
By announcing a commitment to farmers before federal-provincial funding arrangements were complete, Winnipeg effectively backed Ottawa into a corner.
Federal agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief put the best spin on it he could, insisting that it did not mean more pressure on Ottawa. Instead, he said, it was a welcome admission by Manitoba that the province also has a responsibility:
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“Until then, Manitoba was basically saying it’s Ottawa’s problem but I’ve said all along we are in this thing together. I’m pleased they have come forward.”
But the reality is Manitoba’s announcement has tightened the vice on Ottawa.
It must find some more cash, even though an acreage payment is not the program design Ottawa would prefer.
Ottawa’s policy dilemma is how to find a way to be seen helping flood-affected farmers while explaining to other provinces and other farmers clamoring for an acreage payment that it is not a precedent and does not mark a return to aid based on land base or production, rather than need.
By announcing an acreage payment unconnected to income or need, the Manitoba government seems to have removed itself from what had been a federal-provincial consensus that subsidies based on land or production were not the way to go.
Yet Manitoba’s farm aid promise clearly was clever politics by the Filmon government in an election year.
It also was a classic tactic in Canada’s unending game of federal-provincial jockeying. Announce help first and receive the credit.
And there was one other political hook as well. Call it a little bit of Harry Enns payback.
Late last year, it was the provinces who stood backed into a corner.
Manitoba and Saskatchewan argued that the calamity caused by falling grain and hog prices was properly a federal responsibility.
They held out against a federal demand that any farm aid program be shared 60:40 between Ottawa and the provinces.
So Vanclief trumped them. He announced a $900 federal contribution to a $1.5 billion federal-provincial disaster aid program.
Any province that decided to stay out of the program would have to answer to their farmers as they watched producers in neighboring provinces receive 40 percent more, he said.
Vanclief had played the winning card. The two Prairie provinces reluctantly signed on.
Now, the tables have been turned.
Manitoba has forced Ottawa hand. You can almost hear Enns ask how Ottawa will feel if it has to explain to Manitoba farmers why the federal Liberals would not help.
In politics, revenge can be sweet, even for a 33-year veteran like Enns who sees the irony in the turn of events.
“You are capturing it right,” he said with a flicker of a smile when asked about the reversal in bargaining power. “But that is not unusual in federal-provincial positions from time to time.”
