The Hill: Gerry Ritz's curious fib about 'agri-flex'

Monday, March 2, 2009

Why did the federal ag minister adopt the farm lobby's terminology, give them something they didn't want and then say he was meeting their demands?

by BARRY WILSON

The oddest thing about the federal government's $500 million, five-year "agri-flex" commitment in the January budget was its attempt to say it is something it isn't.   

Federal agriculture minister Gerry Ritz insisted that he was responding to farm lobby demands for federal funding of provincially designed programs.

He said the provinces were getting what they requested. But that was only partially true – and not true in the way he was implying.

The federal money, most of it reassigned from existing, budgeted, lower-profile projects, is to support programs outside the farm safety net program. Environmental programs, innovation projects and reducing costs of production are among the targets.

At a net cost to Ottawa of $190 million over five years, it is a modest commitment.

Still, given federal priorities and Ritz's opposition to co-funding provincially designed safety net programs, it is defensible.

The minister has some farm supporters for his stance, including Grain Growers of Canada, who opposefederal dollars going into programs which give farmers in richer provinces better protection than farmers in provinces unable to afford special programs.

But the federal program is not what Quebec and Ontario farm lobbies had wanted or expected.

The Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA), supported by Quebec's UPA, a recently formed grain growers' lobby in the two provinces and the Canadian Federation of Agriculture (CFA), saw it as a chance to resurrect companion programs which were phased out half a decade ago. The lobby called it "agri-flex" and proposed it as a sixth pillar of the new Growing Forward collection of programs.

Ritz adopted the "agri-flex" name, designed a program quite unlike what the farm lobby wanted and then said he was responding to their demands.

When the "agricultural flexibility program" was announced specifically for non-safety net programming, Ritz was asked if this was what the CFA-OFA lobby had wanted.

"It's similar in nature," he responded, knowing full well that it is not.

Then the minister stretched the fib by suggesting it was what the farm lobby had wanted, but much more.   

"Their program originally called for a pot of $50 million that they thought would do and give them the flexibility they wanted in programming," said Ritz. "We have added another zero to that to make it $500 million over the next four years. That's what's left in this Growing Forward package. So I think, you know, it's beyond what they asked for when it comes to money. When it comes to what it will actually address, we'll work those details out with the provinces and with industry."

In reality, the money is over five years not four, although Ritz was speaking before he saw the actual budget document. And program design is only open to negotiation if safety nets are not eligible.

The Ontario-Quebec Grain Farmers' Coalition, which championed the agri-flex proposal as a way to inject federal money into both Quebec's Assurance Stabilisation du Revenu Agricole (ASRA) program and Ontario's Risk Management Program, was not impressed.

"By excluding business risk management from this proposal, the government is breaking their election promise," coalition president William Van Tassel said after the federal budget. "They are making it difficult for the provinces to maintain existing programs and impossible for them to start new ones."

The odd thing is that Ritz could confront the Ontario and Quebec farm lobby with arguments about why their position was unacceptable.

Instead, he stole their language and mistakenly insisted he was meeting their goal.

For a minister trying to woe rural Central Canadian rural votes, it was strange behaviour indeed. BF

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