The Hill: The federal budget - once again a non-event for agriculture
Monday, April 5, 2010
Agriculture rated not a word in Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's speech and little more in the budget details
by BARRY WILSON
Farm leaders are in the business of being optimistic, always expecting or at least hoping that governments will recognize the flaws in their program offerings and that customers will understand farmers need a decent price to survive.
Once upon a time, say before 2003, federal budgets were the annual event that put their optimism about government to the test. Would there be increased spending, new programs, promises to fix programs that are broken?
These days, budgets largely are a non-event for agriculture. Most agricultural spending is locked into so-called statutory programs like AgriStability and AgriInvest that respond to need (often not very well) rather than political commitment. They tick along under the radar, delivering between $3 billion and $4 billion annually without the need for political intervention.
By contrast, budgets are the government's annual opportunity to express its vision for the country.
With this Conservative government, vision for agriculture is in short supply. It consists mainly of efforts to open new markets, making a few strategic investments to improve "competitiveness" and trying to wean farmers off the once well-entrenched assumption that when markets fail to return a living, governments have an obligation to protect the economically vulnerable.
The March 4 federal budget was a classic in the new age of minimalist agriculture promises. In a "rebuild the economy" budget of $250 billion that promised $11 billion in new spending, agriculture rated not a word in Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's speech and little more in the budget details.
The government announced it was "delivering $75 million over three years to support investments by Canadian cattle processing plants to help improve their operations to ensure cattle producers have access to competitive cattle processing operations in Canada."
It will be used primarily to help plants buy equipment for dealing with costs imposed by government rules last year, which strengthened requirements for removing specified risk material from carcasses of cattle older than 30-months.
But not a penny of that is new investment. Finance officials said it all comes from the $500 million AgriFlexibility fund announced last year.
The budget simply was an exercise in re-profiling already announced funding. The only new money appears to be $51.7 million over two years to backfill revenue shortfalls at the Canadian Grain Commission (CGC) – a shortfall caused by a cost recovery fee freeze that was imposed years ago by the previous Liberal government. It is money the government pays every year if it wants the CGC to survive so no surprise.
The main government announcement in the budget and in the previous day's Throne Speech was non-financial. It plans to continue pursuing efforts to end the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly on sales of Prairie wheat and barley into export markets and for domestic human consumption.
Oh, and they will continue to defend supply management but, for other countries, the government will "oppose trade protectionism in all its guises."
Before the budget, Canadian Federation of Agriculture president Laurent Pellerin said he hoped the government would use the occasion to put flesh on the bones of its slogan "putting farmers first."
"We expect that message to be delivered in the Throne Speech," he said. "Our hope is that the government will work with producers to ensure current and future agriculture policy continues to strongly support the role of Canadian farmers in providing safe and nutritious food."
Lofty ambitions like that apparently have no place in 21st century federal budgets. BF
Barry Wilson is a member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery specializing
in agriculture.