For immediate release:
April 8, 2008

Barrett Asks Dombrowsky to Use Ontario
Cigarette Taxes to Fund Tobacco Program

Queen’s Park – Haldimand-Norfolk MPP Toby Barrett asked Ontario’s Agriculture Minister today what her role was in recent negotiations pertaining to a package for the province’s tobacco growers.

“Minister, you were at the table. What went wrong with these negotiations? Can you inform this House, inform farmers, residents of Brant, Oxford, Norfolk and Elgin, what was Ontario’s position at that meeting at the table? Farmers do have a right to know what happened.”

Agriculture Minister Leona Dombrowsky responded by saying that growers certainly had the right to know what occurred and that’s why she was thankful to see representatives from the tobacco growing community at the table.

Feeling that her answer was unacceptable, Barrett further questioned Minister Dombrowsky regarding the use of Ontario tobacco taxes that would fund a package.

“Your Ontario government has raised cigarette taxes a number of times since coming to office,” Barrett said. “Your government obviously likes imposing new taxes and special taxes. You do like the idea of the feds imposing a tax to help out tobacco growers. That’s like you buying a car with someone else’s money, minister, but you publicly do favour a buyout.

“Will you now go forward with the use of Ontario cigarette taxes to help the four counties and their farmers to get out of this mess?”

Minister Dombrowsky explained that the Ontario Government believes smokers should pay for the exit through a Federal tax, and then reminded the House of the $50 million that flowed to tobacco country through the provincial/federal Tobacco Adjustment Assistance Program.

Following Question Period, MPP Barrett stressed the importance of the precedent set not only by the TAAP program, but also that of the Redux program in the 1980s.

“The precedent is there,” Barrett said. “If we ever needed government to come forward, it is now.”

For more information please contact
MPP Toby Barrett at: 1-800-903-8629

Mr. Toby Barrett: To the minister of agriculture. Minister, last week you attended a meeting in Ottawa with your federal counterpart—a meeting that resulted in no federal dollars for farmers desperate to get out of tobacco.

Minister, you were at the table. What went wrong with these negotiations? Can you inform this House, inform farmers, residents of Brant, Oxford, Norfolk and Elgin, what was Ontario’s position at that meeting at the table? Farmers do have a right to know what happened.

Hon. Leona Dombrowsky: I couldn’t agree more that farmers certainly do have the right to know and that is why I made it very clear that I wanted the farmers to be represented at the meeting and, in fact, they were.

So, I would offer that within the tobacco-farming community their representatives were there. I’m sure that they would report to their community. The honourable member has asked what went wrong. This was a meeting that was called by the federal government. I believe that the federal government has raised expectations within the tobacco community around what might have come out of that meeting. I don’t know why the federal minister didn’t say more than he did. I think that was the question that the tobacco farmers came away with as well.

The member from Bruce–Grey–Owen Sound says, “What’s Ontario’s position?”. What it has been for—
The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): It’s going to have to wait. Supplementary.
Mr. Toby Barrett: We do request Ontario’s position. Quebec has paid out their farmers.
You’ve called for tobacco taxes—a special tax to help farmers out of this meltdown of the tobacco market. Your Ontario government has raised cigarette taxes a number of times since coming to office. Your government obviously likes imposing new taxes and special taxes. You do like the idea of the feds imposing a tax to help out tobacco growers. That’s like you buying a car with someone else’s money, minister, but you publicly do favour a buyout.

Will you now go forward with the use of Ontario cigarette taxes to help the four counties and their farmers to get out of this mess?

Hon. Leona Dombrowsky: I think that it’s very important, first of all, to ask the member not to attribute any motive to me. I think that I’ve been very clear on behalf of this government in terms of what I believe the tobacco farmers need.

Number one, I want to say that our government has provided $50 million to tobacco farmers since coming to office: 35 million of those dollars went directly into the farmers’ pockets; $15 million went to ...

L023-1530-8 follows

(Hon. Leona Dombrowsky)
 … government has provided $50 million to tobacco farmers since coming to office. Thirty-five million of those dollars went directly into the farmers’ pockets. Fifteen million went to the community to help them transition to another industry. The position of Ontario has been, is now, will continue to be that we believe, with respect to an exit strategy, it would be the users of the tobacco product and not the taxpayers of Ontario that should fund such a strategy. This does put the ball in the federal court. I think it does certainly place the expectation that any strategy would be led nationally. We support the tobacco growers in their request for that. That was certainly, in my view, made very clear at the meeting—