Directors of the Ontario Corn Producers’ Association and other Ontario grain
and oilseed groups have worked hard for at least two years, trying to convince governments of the need to extend
and enhance the Ontario Market Revenue Insurance (MRI) program - and to eliminate the large and growing gap which
exists between income/price supports for Ontario growers and those available to competing farmers in the United
States. They’ve met with federal and provincial ministers of agriculture, and with federal MPs and provincial MPPs,
on many occasions. They’ve written thousands of words detailing the income support gap and its effect on Ontario
farmers. They’ve met in riding offices, in Ottawa, at fund raising events, and any place else where they could
capture a few minutes of a politician’s time.
They’ve had a few successes for sure - a two-year extension of MRI being one, and a significant increase in Ontario’s
share of federal safety net spending being another. But the larger message - the need for a substantial increase
in targeted support for grain and oilseed producers because of a dramatic and recent growth in comparable support
for U.S. growers - has been ignored, almost completely.
The explanation by politicians has been blunt. “I’m not hearing from individual farmers, just farm lobbyists,”
have said many MPs and MPPs. “I hear more from apple growers than corn farmers,” said Ontario minister Hardeman
at one meeting earlier in 2000. The implication has been that grain and oilseed groups have been making it all
up about disastrously low prices and farm incomes.
And thus, with the cooperation of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, grain and oilseed groups scheduled eleven
meetings across Ontario in mid-August so that politicians and farm leaders could hear from the farmers directly.
The farmers came - and they came in droves. Thirty-five hundred, in total, at the eleven meetings. The farmers
kept the microphones busy until well after the expected closing time at most meetings. The phones, letters, faxes
and e-mails have not stopped since.
More than 350 farmers showed up at the OCPA semi-annual meeting in London on September 13 - versus the normal 150
to 200 - to ask questions of federal agriculture minister Vanclief and two opposition ag critics, Rick Casson of
the Canadian Alliance and Rick Borotsik of the Progressive Conservatives. And they kept coming to the mikes even
after some of the MPs had gone.
And what did the farmers say?
They’re fed up with low or negative incomes, they said, and with being forced to compete with farmers in the United
States, Quebec and Europe, supported at levels two-or-more times larger than in Ontario.
They’re fed up with a federal government which is enjoying budgetary surpluses and which could - but refuses to
- support farmers at levels comparable to what is occurring a few miles to the south across an open border created
by free trade.
They’re fed up with being forced to seek full-time off-farm jobs (both for them and their spouses) to pay the bills
associated with their ‘commercial’ farms, even though the farms are as productive and efficient as any in the world.
They said that enhancements to Market Revenue Insurance were the way to address the income crisis being experienced
in rural Ontario. Almost no one identified the federal government’s favoured child - disaster assistance - as the
recommended route.
The federal government took much of the heat at these meetings - perhaps because U.S./Canadian differences are
seen as being an obvious federal responsibility, and partly because federal minister Vanclief has been so openly
dismissive of requests by producer organizations.
But the Ontario Government and Ontario minister Hardeman must bear equal blame. The difference between financial
support provided to grain and oilseed farmers in Ontario and those in Quebec (where support levels have matched
those provided in the United States), is almost entirely the result of the far greater support provided by the
Province of Quebec versus Ontario.
Hardeman can no longer hide behind his weak position that he’ll match federal safety net spending at only a $2
provincial to $3 federal level. In Quebec it’s at least $3 provincial for every $3 in federal spending. Alberta
does better as well.
And as recently as early August, Mr. Hardeman signed a deal with Ottawa specifically ending MRI after the 2000/01
crop marketing year, and preventing any enhancements. Hardeman sounded out of touch in his response to questions
at the Woodstock meeting on August 23.
Not a single provincial MPP found time to meet with several hundred farmers at a meeting in Guelph on August 24.
There was a clear message for farm groups, as well: they’ve been too timid in their requests to government for
additional support. OCPA and other grain groups have suggested some combination of 90% coverage with MRI and/or
the elimination of one-third deductions. Farm groups have asked for a continuation of MRI through 2002/03.
“No way,” said many farmers who spoke at the eleven meetings. They want 100% coverage, or whatever it takes to
be on a par with growers in the United States. And they want it for as long as high government support programs
continue in that country.
Finally, there’s one other group of politicians that needs to establish contact with rank and file farmers. That’s
the Canadian Federation of Agriculture. In late August, CFA brass met with the federal Liberal caucus and recommended
that increased federal funding go into enhancements to the federal disaster program and recommended against more
allocations through a GRIP-type approach. (Market Revenue Insurance is the Ontario version of GRIP, created with
the endorsement of CFA and many other farm groups in the early 1990s.) According to oral reports from several MPs
who attended the meeting, there was no apparent recognition by CFA of what hundreds of Ontario farmers had said
just a few days before. Indeed, one suspects that many Ontario MPs were better informed of grain and oilseed producer
needs following the August meetings, than they were by those purported to be giving advice at the CFA-Liberal caucus
meeting.
The farmers are no longer quiet. They’ve spoken and will continue to do so with increasing volume. It’s time for
the politicians to respond.
No rural Ontario politician is saying, today, that they’ve not heard from farmers.
Ontario grain and oilseed producers deserve to be treated as well as farmers with whom they must compete in the
United States, Quebec and Europe. And governments in Ottawa and Toronto can afford to meet this need - to the penny.
1