For immediate release:
March 1, 2006

Agriculture funding announcement too little, too late for struggling farmers
One time funding has Minister speaking from both sides of mouth

Queen’s Park— Five months after first calling for provincial funding for struggling farmers Agriculture Critic Toby Barrett says Ontario’s long-awaited response falls far short of the need in Rural Ontario.

“Grain and oilseed farmers had been asking for $300 million to fund their Risk Management Program (RMP),” stated Barrett. “Today we hear $80 million – not even half-way there – and no support for the RMP whatsoever.”

“Farmers are calling me and telling me this is, ‘a slap in the face’.”

The $80 million for Grain and Oilseeds is the traditional 40 per cent provincial share of a federal support announcement in December to offset 2005 losses. An additional $35 million for edible horticulture producers and $10 million for Ontario livestock and poultry brings today’s total announcement to $125 million.

“This is another example of this government sitting on its hands waiting for a crisis to develop and then reacting with a half-baked, inadequate response,” Barrett levelled. “How many tractor protests had to occur to get this government to open its eyes – how many will be required before we get our farmers the support they deserve as they head into another growing season without the security of promised long-term support?”

Barrett further pointed out that in ensuring that today’s announcement is only one-time funding, the Minister of Agriculture is once again saying one thing and doing another.

“The Minister has stated herself that CAIS is not working for our Grain and Oilseed producers and underlined the need for a long-term plan,” Barrett said. “Yet we still hear only one-time funding announcements that do little for farmers planning for the future.”

Barrett says that while the Minister continues to claim the province is waiting for the federal government for further action, it was the federal level that acted first in the delivery of Grain and Oilseeds cheques – a discrepancy that Barrett cleared up in the Legislature last week

“I guess once the Minister realized the federal money was out there – as I told the Legislature – she figured she should deliver on my requests for provincial action,” Barrett concluded. “When will this province move on its own?”

The Agriculture Critic also noted that today’s announcement contained zero for tobacco farmers targeted by the McGuinty ‘war on tobacco’

-30-

For more information, please contact MPP Toby Barrett at (416) 325-8404, (519) 428-0446, or 1-800-903-8629