Following the Ministers’ annual meeting back in 2012, I remember provincial spokespersons for Saskatchewan expressing serious misgivings about what Stephen Harper’s Conservative government was planning to do, back then, to cut vital farm support programs like AgriStability. Mr. Harper was exclusively focused on slashing federal spending to create the illusion of a balanced budget before the election in 2015.
Saskatchewan’s worries were justified. The Conservatives made AgriStability harder to access and much less generous, reducing payouts to Canadian farmers by hundreds of millions of dollars, just as subsidies to farmers in the U.S. and Europe were escalating.
Farm organizations are calling for this damage to be repaired. Most recently, that message came loud and clear from the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan (APAS), the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, the Cattlemen’s Association, the Pork Council and the Grain Growers. They all support improvements proposed by federal Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau that would boost AgriStability payouts to farmers by about 50%. The biggest benefits would flow into Saskatchewan.
Since this is a jointly funded program, the federal Minister cannot make these improvements all by herself. The provinces have a veto – especially major producing provinces like Saskatchewan. Will the SaskParty contribute their fair share, or will they exercise their veto and prevent AgriStability from being fixed?
While farmers wait for an answer, here are three key points to remember:
The federal government will always pay the lion’s share (60%);
The provincial Treasury’s portion is smaller (40%) – that amounts to about $22 million, which is less than 0.15% of Saskatchewan’s total annual budget;
While this past year has been difficult because of COVID-19, most of the extra cost burden has been offset by new transfer payments from Ottawa to Saskatchewan totalling more than $500 million, plus $400 million for local oil and gas jobs, plus close to $300 million to increase the Canada Child Benefit for Saskatchewan families, plus about $3 billion for emergency payments to maintain the wages and subsidize the incomes of hundreds of thousands of individual Saskatchewan citizens.
If Saskatchewan says “yes” quickly to fixing AgriStability as proposed by Minister Bibeau, the corrections can be made retroactive to cover 2020. Let’s hope this important job gets done.
By Hon. Ralph Goodale, PC
Opinions expressed here are those of the author
