For immediate release:
March 6, 2006

Provincial Ag. funding falls short

Simcoe— 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 only a fraction of that, and no support for a long-term risk management program whatsoever.

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

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. This is another example of this government sitting on its hands waiting for a crisis to develop and then reacting with an inadequate response.

“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 assistance as they head into another growing season without the security of promised long-term support?”

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

“Just over a week ago, the Minister said they were waiting for the federal government to move first,” Barrett concluded. “I guess when she realized the federal money was already out there – as I told the Legislature – she figured she should deliver on requests for provincial action.

“Instead of waiting to be embarrassed into action when will this province do the right thing and act responsibly to support our farmers in the first place?”

The Agriculture Critic also noted that the announcement was delayed until the onset of three by-elections in Ontario.

Today’s announcement contained zero for tobacco farmers targeted by the McGuinty ‘war on tobacco’ and nothing regarding the extension of deadstock removal services.

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For more information, please contact MPP Toby Barrett at (416) 325-8404, (519) 428-0446, or 1-800-903-862