The reality behind the latest round of ag research cuts

Sunday, November 3, 2013

Federal briefing notes refer to layoffs as 'right-sizing,' program shutdowns as 'discontinuation' and cutbacks as 'restraint exercises.' But the net result is a reduction in long-term basic research funding

by BARRY WILSON

As the federal government prepared for the March 2013 federal budget that was going to chop more than 230 positions from its Agriculture Canada research branch and eliminate programs across the country, Ottawa bureaucrats prepared briefing notes for affected provincial ministers.

For Ontario agriculture minister and premier Kathleen Wynne, the message from Ottawa was of cuts, but nothing like the hammering that the Prairies took.

"In Ontario, we will discontinue the dairy genetic and production poultry research activities at Guelph as industry has the capacity to continue this research," said draft notes on a briefing for Ontario obtained by Ottawa access-to-information researcher Ken Rubin. The note said dairy research would be moved to Lennoxville, Que.

As the agriculture research cuts went, Ontario was largely spared, although the actual financial impact of the cuts was blanked out in the documents released by the department.

In government-speak, departmental wordsmiths decided that the best way to  justify research branch cuts, and the firing of scientists and their technicians, was to say they simply were "right-sizing" the department to make its science research more in line with what industry needs and to concentrate government spending on areas appropriate to what government, rather than industry, should be doing.

Cuts in research programs were "discontinuation." And so it went.

"The majority of discontinuation, consolidation and right-sizing activities are located in western Canada where the majority of government and industry science capacity is currently located," said a draft briefing note for deputy minister Suzanne Vinet weeks before the budget was tabled in the House of Commons.

The point was to reduce government funding while luring industry financing into research areas that would produce short-term market product payoff. There will be a reduction in government "what if" long-term basic research funding, emphasizing instead spending on short-term projects that produce industry pay-off and attract industry financing.

Researchers insist the research investment by the private sector is paltry by world standards.

Of course, this was not just Ottawa putting the screws to funding for basic research. It is part of the Growing Forward 2 federal-provincial policy agreement that took effect April 1 with support from Ontario and all other provinces.

But in the draft briefing notes for federal deputy minister Vinet, bureaucrats also recognized that research cuts were a sensitive topic that could not be seen as deficit-cutting plans even though they are. The cuts and changes in research funding policy will allow the government to "leverage" more investment from industry while hiding government cuts, said the briefing notes.

"This approach is consistent with earlier methods of reduction in which we minimized the visibility of restraint exercises," said the briefing note. "There is a risk of maintaining expectations because the (science and technology) branch will be seen to have capacity but may lack critical mass, flexibility and sufficient operating funds to be responsive to opportunities and challenges in a timely manner."

In real-speak, that means science investment may not be up to the job in the new five-year national farm policy framework.

And while Ontario was one of the only holdouts on farm safety net cuts when Growing Forward 2 was negotiated in 2012, it was silent on massive cuts to science investment and long-term research.

This is not just an Ottawa thing. BF

Barry Wilson is a member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery specializing in agriculture.