Perth-Wellington federal candidates from all parties gathered in Kenilworth on Oct. 1 to debate agricultural issues.
The debate, hosted by the Wellington Federation of Agriculture, touched on supply management, risk management, and infrastructure for the agriculture industry.
Irma DeVries of the Christian Heritage Party, independent candidate Roger Fuhr, Stephen McCotter of the Liberal Party, Conservative John Nater, NDP candidate Ethan Rabidoux and Nicole Ramsdale of the Green Party were in attendance.
Business risk management
To start off the debate, candidates discussed how they could improve the responsiveness and effectiveness of risk management programs in the agriculture industry.
Rabidoux said the NDP will reverse cuts to the Growing Forward 2 programs.
“The NDP is committed to working with the provinces and working with agriculture to improve risk management programs,” said Rabidoux. “Programs like AgriStability and Agri-Invest have been gutted over the past few years; they’ve been much harder to access and the NDP will reverse that.”
Fuhr said the parties have failed businesses when it comes to these programs.
“Business risk management programs are facing similar problems as most other problems that political parties try to enact. These programs routinely fail to deliver to the ones they are intended for and of course have been promised to you by political parties,” said Fuhr.
He added, “The Conservative Harper and Schellenberger regime that has been in place in this riding for 11 years has failed you and I expect more dribble drabble should they be re-elected when it comes to delivering programs.”
McCotter also mentioned Conservative cuts to the program.
“The issue of provincial cooperation is a huge reason the economy in Ontario has stalled. Stephen Harper has all but refused to work with the province of Ontario,” McCotter said.
“If the federal government and the provincial government are not cooperating, things are going to continue to stall in Ontario. A classic example of that is the farming industry. I understand that AgriStability was cut from 85 to 70 per cent under the Harper Conservatives.”
The top-down approach does not work, according to DeVries. She offered a localized solution instead.
“We would implement a program that has one per cent of the HST on the foods at the consumer level, not at the farm gate, (going) into an emergency fund for each sector to be administered by the democratically-elected producers’ boards,” said DeVries.
“Such funds would allow those producer’s organizations to deal swiftly with emergencies such as … avian flu without being dependent on the government subsidy or emergency bailouts, which always come too late to be useful.”
The Green Party wants to see local input and input from affected parties, Ramsdale said.
“We need to know what you need so we can put those things into place,” she said. “One thing we do want to support is we want to give financial assistance and support for farmers that do want to move into organic farming … We want to make sure that farm support payments are farm-based not production-based.”
Nater said the next round of business risk management programs will be implemented for the 2018 Growing Forward 3 and will include input from farmers and constructive dialogue between all the national and provincial agricultural organizations. He added it needs to be affordable.
“One of the things we need to ensure is that ag programs, any business risk management program, is affordable for the producer and the premiums are set at such a level that they match the level that farmers are willing to pay,” said Nater.
“There’s no sense having a program if premiums are too high and farmers don’t opt in… When we do renegotiate the suite of business risk management programs, you do so with a streamlined application process to cut down the red tape.”
Infrastructure and services
Roads, bridges, rail lines, along with internet and other services, are essential for farm efficiency, and with municipalities struggling to pay for those services, each candidate offered a solution.
Fuhr said farming has changed drastically and infrastructure needs to keep up to the changes. But he added that internet should not be subsidized by the government.
“I will relentlessly lobby for rural areas to get its fair share of grant money from provincial and federal governments. However, I do not believe that it is the responsibility of the government to provide internet services or even subsidize those services,” Fuhr said.
“It is far too costly to run fibre optics to remote rural homes and some independent companies in Ontario that did so are finding out that it could cause bankruptcy for them. One has to remember about one’s choice of career and location for that career.”
McCotter said infrastructure funding is essential to keep taxes low.
“Canadian municipalities pay 60 per cent of the infrastructure cost in Canada, although they collect 10 per cent of the tax revenue. This is why our infrastructure spending commitment is so important. Because when municipalities don’t have the money, they raise your property taxes,” said McCotter
He added the Liberal Party would not cut spending in order to balance the budget.
“We are not going to do that; we are going to spend $60 billion, $20 billion of which is infrastructure … the money is going to flow to the municipalities and they can spend it as they see fit.”
DeVries said the Christian Heritage Party’s infrastructure renewal plan would allow municipalities to borrow money from the Bank of Canada.
“We would like to have the Bank of Canada lend this money to municipalities for infrastructure renewal; any municipality that comes up with a business plan for roads, rail, internet, gas lines in the roads, hospitals, libraries, you name it,” she said.
The Green Party wants to increase funding to the municipalities through the gas tax, said Ramsdale.
“The Green Party wants to re-examine the place of the municipal order of government within the confederation,” she said. “It’s currently not even mentioned and so right now funding is, 50 per cent of tax revenue is sent to the federal programs, 42 (per cent) provincially and only eight (per cent) goes to municipalities. We think a conversation needs to be had about that and how we’re going to fix that and give that money over in different ways.”
Ramsdale continued, “We want to create a new pool of infrastructure funding by changing tax rules to create a municipal registered retirement savings plan bond that can be held in your RRSPs. (We want to) increase gas tax transfer to municipalities to $0.05 per litre to be used in funding of public transit, cycling infrastructure, rural roads. We also want to re-invest in the rail system.”
Nater said the Conservative Party has committed funding for both infrastructure and internet service.
“In terms of rural broadband, (it’s) absolutely essential in our rural communities,” he said. “I’m proud our government has committed $200 million through rural broadband options … In terms of infrastructure funding … we’ve committed $53 billion for 10 years. It is the largest and longest infrastructure spend in Canadian history. We plan to work with municipalities and identify their key priorities and find funding that needs to be directed specifically to those needs.”
Rabidoux, however, said Canada needs a change in leadership.
“Canada’s municipal infrastructure deficit stands at $172 billion, which is staggering … Successive Liberal and Conservative governments have downloaded on municipalities and that’s why we have the situation that we have today,” Rabidoux said.
He added the NDP’s national transportation strategy will invest $1.3 billion over 20 years for “predictable, stable, long-term investments for our municipalities” and an additional $1.5 million annually in direct transfers to municipalities.
“The NDP’s plan is fully-costed,” he said. “We will balance the budget over the next four years … we do not believe in running deficits that just transfer well from one generation to the next, we have to live within our means,” he added.
Research and innovation
Candidates were asked how they will ensure a stable public research community to provide innovative agriculture.
“We would put our faith back in our scientists. Over the last decade, Stephen Harper has muzzled our scientists. We would commit right away to reversing all the rules and regulations that have brought in to prevent scientists from talking about their science,” said McCotter.
He added the Liberal Party would make all governmental science available online, create the position of an independent chief science officer, and reverse gutting of funding for scientists.
DeVries said the Christian Heritage Party supports research and development and wants scientists to be able to share their work.
“There’s a lot of scientists right now that are being held back from publishing when it comes to being against or denying climate change … I think that’s a political ploy,” she said.
Ramsdale said the Green Party would reinvest in the scientific community and encourage research.
“We need to be investing and researching new methods and viable options that we can use. We do believe that things need to be done in a prove-that-they’re-safe versus introduce-and-then-prove-that-it’s-not mentality,” she said.
Nater said the Conservatives would continue to invest in agricultural research.
“Research is absolutely essential to the growth in the agriculture industry,” he said. “We are approaching a growing population worldwide and the research that we perform in Canada can actually be used overseas as well to help address a lot of the hunger issues … Through Agri-Innovation we’ve committed $698 million in funding. This is in collaboration with each of the commodity groups.”
Nater added the government provided $3 million to the Livestock Research and Innovation Centre – Elora Dairy Facility.
Rabidoux agreed scientists are being muzzled.
“We have to remove the culture of fear that is being created in the Canadian scientific community so they can do the research and publish it without fear of reprisals,” said Rabidoux.
Fuhr added, “I believe that the Harper government has pretty much gutted research over its tenure and that we need to reinstate that to a certain extent … If research is warranted in a certain area, as your MP I will certainly do my part to advocate on behalf of Perth-Wellington.”
Supply management
Candidates were asked their position on supply management and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which was later approved in principle, just four days following the debate.
“We do not plan to use your livelihood as bargaining chips so if that is something that is required on the table, it’s a no-go for us,” said Ramsdale. “Your livelihoods must be protected, Canadian farmers must be protected above all else; you guys produce incredible crops and incredible animals and that absolutely needs to be protected.”
She added all imported products need to be up to Canadian standards.
Nater said Conservatives are working with the best intentions of Canadians in mind for the TPP.
“There’s so much misinformation out there right now based on gossip, based on rumours, based on made up facts … The facts are our government has been very clear we are strongly committed to maintain our system’s supply management and protecting the three pillars of supply management … we will only sign a deal that is in the best interest of Canada,” he said.
However, Rabidoux was not convinced, saying he was concerned about the secrecy of the deal.
“One of the reasons why there’s so much confusion around the TPP is that nobody knows what’s in it. The cloak of secrecy around it has made it impossible for us to say for sure what is and what isn’t,” he said.
“The NDP’s commitment is that we are absolutely committed to supply management … We’ve been committed to this for decades… We need transparency in these trade negotiations, what is actually in the agreement, then we could put all these rumours to rest.”
Fuhr was also concerned about the TPP.
“Harper says he will protect the supply management system and the automotive sector but a couple months ago I heard a talk on the auto sector employing more people and with better paying jobs than the dairy sector … I think there might be more bad news coming your way shortly and I find that to be very disturbing,” he said.
McCotter said he wants to know if the deal is good for Perth-Wellington.
“Stephen Harper has neglected southwestern Ontario for 10 years; the automotive industry is the best example. He sold off the Canadian Wheat Board without even discussing it, so he doesn’t instill a lot of faith in me. Mr. Nater says Stephen Harper will only sign a trade agreement if it’s good for Canada, I believe that, but will it be good for Perth-Wellington,” he said.
DeVries said she was concerned about how long the TPP deal will last, asking how concessions made to the other countries can be guaranteed once the election is over.
“Despite the government’s attempt to grant itself the power to continue to negotiate the TPP during an election campaign, there are reasons to doubt it can effectively do so,” said DeVries. “The agreement would require major changes to a wide range of issues.”
She continued, “Agreeing to those changes when acting as a caretaker government would appear to violate the requirement to restrict activities to routine or non-controversial matters.
“A new government or even a Conservative minority government might have an impact on Canada’s position on the most contentious issues. The parties will be forced back to the bargaining table.”
Candidates were also asked if they would have a presence in Wellington County if they are elected.
All candidates said they would have a constituency office in the county.
