Promises, promises
Has the common sense revolution found it's way to the farm gate?BY BERNARD TOBIN and JOHN MUGGERIDGE
Education, health care, taxes - it's information overload for voters as they prepare to head to the polls for a provincial election June 3.On the farm front, promises fly fast as opposition parties take aim at the agricultural track record of the incumbent Progressive Conservatives, who've cultivated the provincial farm file for the past four years.
Premier Mike Harris came to power June 8, 1995, vowing that "under a Mike Harris government agriculture will regain its fair share of government support." Today, the opposition parties and many Ontario farm leaders charge the four-year-old promise has a hollow ring. But from the Hogtown hotseat in his 11th-floor office in downtown Toronto, Harris' farm lieutenant Agriculture Minister Noble Villeneuve's answer to the critics is simple - do the math.
"The facts are there," repeats the 60-year-old farm boy from Dundas county who has been Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs for the past four years. "We reversed the trend of cutting."
Villeneuve, a 16-year political veteran, says he knows the opposition game, having spent "10 years to the day" there before the Tories romped back to power June 28, 1995.
While critics charge his calculator is constructed of political hot buttons, the minister insists the agriculture budget numbers add up to an increase during the Tory tenure. But farm groups beg to differ. "The farm groups...understand that the funding has gone up, but for some reason they keep listening to opposition members. The facts are there," Villeneuve says.
"We're not going to keep everyone happy, and even if we did keep them happy they'd be unhappy, because they're maybe not supporting our party. I understand that."
The Farmers of Ontario, a coalition of 41 farm groups and commodity organizations, has had a rocky relationship with the Tories since the 1998 provincial budget. It felt agriculture's contribution to the Ontario economy was overlooked, and the government failed to commit significant new spending to the sector.
Prior to the Tory budget earlier this month, provincial farm leaders were all singing from the same hymn book.
Farmers of Ontario co-chairman Wayne Newman, who also chairs the Ontario Agricultural Commodity Council, said the "Conservative government has done a good job in all areas, except agriculture." He gave the government points for their efforts on issues such as farm practices legislation and tax reform, "but it hasn't cost them a lot of money."
Ontario Federation of Agriculture president Ed Segsworth, another co-chairman of the Farmers of Ontario, also questioned the Tories' treatment of agriculture. "Our expectations were founded in the common sense revolution, and as it turns out the common sense revolution didn't come about as far as agriculture is concerned.
"We wanted them to re-invest in the industry. So far we've had very little success," Segsworth said.
Even the fiscally conservative Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario, which does not belong to the industry lobby coalition, called for increased spending. CFFO president Bob Bedggood, who thinks the government "has generally done a good job," said his organization called for the government "to trim a little fat out of the ministry.
"But today it's time we put some money - not a lot of money- back" into the agriculture budget, Bedggood said.
Last month, the industry lobby was focusing intently on the provincial budget for signs that the Tories were willing to slip more money into the agriculture envelope. (See page 6 for budget details.)
"The budget will set the stage for the whole election," said Segsworth.
"If they can't deliver, maybe one of the other parties can," said Newman. But the Tories did deliver on budget day with $35 million in new spending for food safety, and environment and on-farm quality management. They also tossed in an at-source Retail Sales Tax for farmers, and pushed the OMAFRA budget to a projected $370 million for 1999/2000.
The announcement came only three days after the Liberal government said it would spend $35 million annually on agriculture if it wins the election.
"It goes a long way to meeting what they asked," said Villeneuve, who expects the industry group to continue its aggressive lobby. "That's their job."
Segsworth, exercising some diplomacy after the budget, offered an olive branch to the minister. "We got about half of what we're looking for....Half a loaf is better that none. It's a start," he said, noting that the lobby group had worked closely with the farm ministry to formulate its plan and would continue to do so.
But Segsworth said he and Villeneuve continue "to agree to disagree" on budget math.
According to Villeneuve's crunching of the numbers, the 1998-99 agricultural budget sits at $340 million, including the $40-million disaster program and $25 to $30 million in ice storm relief. The total, he says, is $340 million, "up by 25 per cent this year compared to what we were last year."
He says much of critics' confusion stems from the Tories' removal of the farm tax rebate from the agriculture books: "It's very convenient to forget the $170 million of the farm tax rebate." With the farm tax rebate, this year's budget would be "a shade over $500 million," versus $422 million when the Tories took power, Villeneuve argues.
Segsworth says Villeneuve has punched a few too many numbers on his calculator. He says the minister shouldn't include ice storm and income disaster relief in his calculations. "That's not part of the OMAFRA budget," Segsworth argues. "It's a disaster; we feel it comes out of a different fund. It's not an agriculture item."
As for future farm demands, Villeneuve describes the five-year $350-million Farmers of Ontario plan as "a very serious blueprint." But he adds he's "not sure we're going to be able to fill their every want and need."
© copyright 1999 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.
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Noble in tough
Ice storm, price storm, and now the battle of his political lifetime. It's been quite a ride for Ontario Agriculture Minister Noble Villeneuve, the farm boy from Dundas county who has spent the last four years in Ontario agriculture's top spot."It's always a tough ride," says the affable Villeneuve, who won a 1983 by-election in the old Stormont-Dundas-Glengarry-East Grenville riding "distant relative" Osie Villeneuve had held. Villeneuve served as a junior minister attached to natural resources and conservation authorities before "the roof fell in" on the short-lived Frank Miller government. After 10 years in opposition, Villeneuve and the Tories returned to power in 1995.
Today, the area has been represented by the Villeneuve name for half a century, but the incumbent knows he's in for "a tough fight" in this year's provincial election.
Part of the Tory riding restructuring of 1996, the new Stormont-Dundas-Charlottenburgh riding includes the town of Cornwall, where popular Liberal member John Cleary has served for three terms since 1987, including a stint as agriculture critic.
The 60-year-old Villeneuve, who is well known in rural parts, realizes he's taking on a new riding that is "62 per cent...new," but insists he's "up to" the challenge of taking on the city of Cornwall as well.
He also realizes he'll be asked to defend the Tories' agriculture record on the campaign trail. He says he'll have plenty of material to draw from, including:
* Strengthening the Farm Practices Protection ActVilleneuve won't be heading out to the campaign empty-handed either. The Conservatives' Blueprint election document gives the ag minister plenty of ammunition, including an additional 20 per cent cut in Ontario's income tax rate; a 20 per cent cut in Ontario's portion of residential property taxes; a guaranteed 20 percent increase in health care funding; and a $2 billion fund to improve Ontario's highway infrastructure.* Repealing Bill 91, which would have allowed the unionization of family farms
* Rebating the retail sales tax on farm building materials
* Responding to ice storm victims with $10 million in 23 days
* Being first out of the blocks in the country with disaster relief payouts, which total so far $14 million and 1,400 cheques
* $30-million Rural Jobs Strategy Fund, the $35-million Rural Youth Strategy, and the summer jobs program responsible for over 5,000 student jobs last year
* $1-billion increase in Ontario agri-food exports to $6.3 billion, exceeding targets by $300 million, despite Asian economic 'flu
* $40-million investment in the new high-tech ministry
© copyright 1999 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.
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Dalton's farm deal
Is Dalton McGuinty the real deal? Or will he fold like a cheap suitcase as Liberal leaders Lyn McLeod and David Peterson have done the past two provincial elections?The Liberals are hoping that a strong rural policy statement, released earlier this month as part of their 20/20 election platform, will give their new leader and his band of rural MPP wan-nabees enough momentum to hang on to first place this time around.
Essex-Kent MPP Pat Hoy, the party's agriculture critic and a front runner for the ag minister portfolio should the Liberals form the next government, will help bring the message to rural Ontario.
For Hoy, it's tough to separate agriculture from the rural community. The one-time farmer who now rents out his Merlin cash crop operation wants to combine rural and agricultural issues to woo voters.
"We understand that rural and farming communities have a vital role to play in our future," Hoy says. "We want to reinvest in agriculture and rural Ontario."
In what reads like a wish list provided by the Farmers of Ontario and a number of other rural lobby groups, the Liberals plan to fix just about everything.
Hoy, who has worked diligently to keep small schools open in rural Ontario, says his government would scrap the "shortsighted" Conservative school funding formula and keep small rural schools open.
Rural health care will also get a boost: Medical students will get free tuition if they agree to practice in an underserviced area for five years, and the cost of ambulances will be uploaded to the provincial level.
Spending estimates for the Liberal promises are pegged at $2.5 billion, with $2.1 billion being targeted to health and education. Where will the money come from? The Liberals have said they do not intend to roll back the Conservatives' 30 per cent tax cut, preferring to pin their promises on increased transfers from the federal government, chopping high-priced consultants from the public payroll and outlawing partisan government advertising.
Some of the $2.5 billion is also expected to find its way in to farm programs. Mirroring the demands of the Farmers of Ontario, the Liberals will spend money on research, enhanced safety net programs, market development, food safety and the environment. The Liberals have promised to slip $35 million in new money into the agriculture envelope annually - or $140 million over four years. That's short of the Farmers of Ontario's call for $350 million in new spending over five years, but does throw some water on all the hot spots.
Is $35 million enough? "I'd like to do more but we're trying to be very responsible in our handling of government finances," said McGuinty at a provincial budget press conference. "It's a start. It's a step in the right direction."
Promises to maintain a separate agriculture ministry, keep local OMAFRA offices open and hold an annual premier's conference on the future of agriculture will sit well with farm groups.
"I think the Farmers of Ontario are looking for a strong vision of where we, Ontario, and perhaps Canada, will be heading in agriculture," says Hoy.
The Liberals believe they have it. And hope it will keep Mr. McGuinty's star shining brightly in rural Ontario. - Bernard Tobin
© copyright 1999 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.
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The Hampton manoeuvre
New Democrat leader Howard Hampton says he realizes "a lot of farmers are conservative by instinct - maybe even progressive conservative."The Rainy River MPP and the party's agriculture critic, however, says farmers have to look at what he calls the reality of the Mike Harris government and its effects on rural Ontario. "I don't think people are benefiting," he says.
"People in rural Ontario, by and large, don't get the [30 per cent] tax cut because they don't have high enough incomes. But they are getting all the increase in health care, education, property taxes, policing and ambulance."
But Hampton isn't about to play favourites in a provincial election campaign. Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty is also on the Hampton firing line.
"Mr. McGuinty is saying you can have the 30 per cent tax cut. There'll be money for health care, education and communities, and the money is going to come from somewhere over there.
"It's the same argument that Mr. Harris used in 1995. You take the package and wrap it with a red ribbon this time instead of a blue one."
In the minds of farmers, however, Hampton's toughest opponent may be his own party. When Bob Rae was elected in 1990, Rae installed Elmer Buchanan, a straight shooter and consensus builder, as his agriculture minister. While Buchanan gained the respect of the farming community, the government couldn't escape the tough financial times that pushed the annual provincial deficit to $11 billion. Spending cuts at the agriculture ministry, and policies such as allowing farm workers to unionize, prompted disfavour in the farm community. After one term, the Rae government was put out to pasture when the Tories swept Ontario in 1995.
"The Rae government had to govern Ontario after some of the worst events the province has ever seen," says Hampton, who served stints as both the Minister of Natural Resources and Attorney General in the Rae government. "T he Rae government didn't bring in free trade and it costs us 600,000 jobs...[it] didn't create the recession... and it didn't make a decision in Ottawa to take $3 billion out of health care and $3 billion out of education."
But with recent history still nipping at his heels, Hampton is trying to move on. The key plank in the NDP platform is a pledge to roll back the Conservatives' 30 per cent tax reduction for people who earn taxable income of $80,000 or more. That would give a New Democrat government $1.5 billion a year, "whether we're in a recession or an inflationary period, to put back into health, education and communities to stop some of the damage," Hampton says.
There's also a pledge to repeal Bill 160, the Conservatives' education law, and for more doctors and expanded daycare for rural Ontario.
Hampton says he's also ready to heal some of agriculture's wounds: "I think the Farmers of Ontario have it right." The 41-member farm organization and commodity group lobby has produced what it calls a blueprint for agriculture, calling for $350 million of public investment over five years in areas such as risk management, research, food safety, the environment and market development.
"The priority is taking the money that's going into those tax cuts now and making thoughtful strategic investments in four or five key places that are going to position us to be productive now and in the future," says Hampton.
If there is one red flag in the NDP platform for farmers, it could be the party's plan to restore labour legislation dismantled by the Conservatives. Will this mean unionized labour on farms?
"Bill 91 wasn't aimed at farms," says Hampton. "It was aimed at a situation where somebody works in a large processing plant with 200 employees," processing things like fruit juice, tomatoes or hides.
"If people desire to organize, they ought to be able to. That's a principle I believe in. That's a principle the New Democrats have always believed in," says Hampton. - Bernard Tobin
© copyright 1999 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.
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