Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1987-04-15, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 15, 1987. PAGE 5. MP's hear farm groups' concerns Topics from Free Trade to the widening of Highway 8 were discussed when the Huron County Federation of Agriculture held its annual Members of Parliament dinner in Clinton. The Federation and affiliated farm commodity groups from the county presented eight briefs to the head table guests which included Murray Cardiff, M.P. for Huron Bruce; Jack Riddell, M.P.P. from Huron-Middlesex and provincial Minister of Agriculture, Huron County Warden Brian McBurney and Jack Wilkinson, vice-president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture. Unable to attend was Murray Elston, M.P.P. for ’ Huron-Bruce and Minister of Health. In his opening remarks Warden McBurney said the county, as well as helping commodity groups, has gotten more involved in industrial development so the biggest export from the county wouldn’t continue to be its young people. Mr. Riddell said things look tough on the farm scene with world-wide surplusses of many grains but “None of us knows what Mother Nature will do. All she has to do is bring about a drought in a few of the food producing countries,” he said, and the situation can change quickly. In addition U.S. President Ronald Reagan as he tries to look at his budget must look at the Food Security Act. In addition the European Economic Community also seems to be seeing the folly of high subsidizing and has asked that agriculture be included in the next round of negotiations of the General Agreement on Tarrifs and Trade. He pointed out that in the ECC, 70 per cent of farm income comes from subsidies and in the U.S. the figure is 50 per cent. In Canada the rate is 12-15 per cent. “That tells you the really competitive position we’re in in Canada,” he said. All new programs Canadian governments introduce are going to be one that won’t give farmers an incentive to produce more of commodities that are really in surplus positions, he said. * ‘The market place has got to call the shot, ’ ’ in determining what crops should be grown. FCC should get back into lending, HFA says Free Trade brings debate in several farm briefs The Farm Credit Corporation (FCC) or a similar vehicle must get back into lending at stable long term interest rates that reflect the realities of farming, Paul Klopp, president of the Huron Federation of Agriculture told the Members of Parliament. In past years, he said, farm leaders had seen the need for FCC to get back to being a leader in mortgaging at reasonable rates but that government had helped out banks by setting FCC long-term rates higher than the short-term rates offered by banks. In the early 80’s with predictions from some experts that interest rates weren’t likely to go up and were more likely to go down, farmers opted to take the short-term bank loans only to be burned when interest rates skyrocketed. Now many farm families are in financial trouble and their equity has dropped below 50 per cent because of declining land prices. “Michael Wilson needs to be educated as to where the problem lies,” Mr. Kloppsaid. “He says he is always concerned with the deficit yet he spends millions on getting farmers out of agriculture and into other lines of employment. He spends millions on soil conserva­ Bd. wants changes Continued from page 1 process removed from the Act; or at least not used until such time as a strike is imminent so that the public may be kept aware of the true issues in the dispute. As well, the HBE stresses that equal rights should be available to both parties in a dispute; that is, that a board should have the right to request the teachers’ final offer andbe able to vote on alock-out without waiting for the teachers to strike first, as under the current Bill. Also, if teachers are to retain the right to institute a “work to rule” compaign, as they may now, the board should have the right to modify the terms of employment on exactly the same basis. In conclusion, the Huron County tion because the right people are no longer there to properly manage it (the land). We spend billions on unemployment insurance because people can’t get jobs.” What farmers need to be self-sufficient are commitments, “strong and true” from the Ministers of Agriculture, he said. Mr. Cardiff said the interest rates on FCC loans had dropped recently from 10.75 per cent to 10 per cent although it certainly could be lower. The problem is, he said, that the FCC legislation calls for it to recover losses through the interest it charges. As for educating Michael Wil­ son, he said, it had to be realized that many of the farm families in troublejustwanted togetoutof farming and on with their lives. The main idea of government assistance was still to keep as many farmers farming as possible. Mr. Riddell acknowledged Mr. Klopp’s brief had credited the Provincial government for its Ontario Farm Family Interest Rate Reduction program and said his government was looking seriously at continuing the program at 100 per cent coverage this year instead of beginning to phase it out as originally planned. trustees’ report says that the current situation, in which nearly half the school boards in Ontario have spent more than nine months in negotiations with their teachers, does nothing to improve relations between the two parties, a situa­ tion the HBE finds intolerable. In Huron, an agreement was signed in mid-December between the HBE and its 265 Secondary teachers, the first time in 10 years that negotiations between the two parties had been concluded in the same year in which they began. In the on-going dispute between the board and its 350 elementary teachers, a provincial mediator was appointed in early February, while an imposed news blackout has been in effect ever since. Free trade formed a major point of discussion coming out of several briefs presented during the day. The topic was the centerpiece of the presentation by Waiter Elliott of the Huron County Milk Commit- teewhicharguedthatthe Cana­ dian milk marketing system is working well and the U.S. system has failed, causing costly surplus­ es. The Canadian system “has reached a level of maturity and discipline rarely seen in the world and it cannot accept becoming part of the chaotic U.S. dairy problem. ’ ’ Changes in the system would force many producers into bank­ ruptcy, he warned. It is difficult to identify a single benefit for the Canadian dairy industry in Free Trade and easy to see tremendous losses, he said. Murray Cardiff, M.P. for Huron- Bruce pointed out the motion passed in Parliament supporting free trade negotiations had said that farm marketing systems would not be part of the negotia­ tions. “I would see no reason why any government would want to negotiate away marketing sy­ stems,” he said. Huron Cattlemen oppose widening of Hwy. 8 The Huron Cattlemen’s Association brief, as is often the case, was the most controversial brief presented to the Mem­ bers of Parliament but this time for somewhat different reasons than usual. Among the items in this, the longest brief of the day presented by Keith Strang, were the proposed widening of Highway 8, (which the Cattlemen’s Association opposed), to a call for inclusion of sileage corn under the Special Canadian Grains Program to the approval of the Ontario Hydro line through Huron county. Of these, the most controversial was the Highway8widening. “We feel Highway 8 is very adequate now,” the brief stated. “Hundreds of millions of dollars of agricultural products travel in and out of Huron county each year without problem. To build a highway to serve industry which does not exist would be a foolish waste of the taxpayers’ money.” Dealing with a recent call from the mayors of the five county towns for more diversification of industry to make up for the declining farm population, the brief said * ‘ the fact of the matter is Huron county is the leading agricultural producing county in the province of Ontario...Industrialization and urban development would not complement our agricultural base. Since we do not have high unemployment or a large market for consumer goods, major industry would not locate in Huron County unless it was subsidized.” Jack Riddell was the first to comment on the Highway 8 portion of the brief saying that he avoided Highway 8 “like the plague” when he was travelling back and forth to Toronto. Aside from agriculture, he said, Huron county is industry deficient and he thought it was wise for the county of Huron to establish a development officer to try to get more industry into the county. Young people now have to leave the county to get jobs, he pointed out. Warden Brian McBurney pointed out that ofthe58,000 people in Huron county, 13,000 were farmers or farm families, 25,000 lived in towns and villages and the remaining 30,000 were living in rural areas but not involved in agriculture. “Where are the young peopie who grew up here,' ’ he asked. He said there are industries that want to establish in Huron because of the stable workforce and the lower wage level than elsewhere. The county is looking at putting more emphasis on the development part of the Planning and Development office, he said, because too often an industry has approached one municipality, not been able to find a suitable location and was lost to the county because there was no co-ordination between municipalities. As for highway 8, he said, “the only thing that makes Highway 8 look good is Highway 4 in the winter.” Paul Klopp worried that if Highway 8 was improved it might make Huron county a more attractive site for a chemical waste disposal site, noting that one of the favourable areas for such a site was in Huron county. Mr. Riddell said it would be “assinine” to truck wastes all the way from the industrial heartland to Huron county giving greater chance to an environmental catastrophe if there was a truck accident. On Tripartide Stabilization the Cattle­ men’s brief called for producer premiums to go into individual accounts instead of a pool with the farmer being able to recover his premiums less administration costs if there hadn't been a payout. “It’s just not as simple as it would appear from this presentation,” Mr. Riddell replied. There is no easy answer and the fund must be actuarilly sound, he said. To the Cattlemen’s disappointment over the approval of the Hydro line through Huron, Mr. Riddell said he was surprised there had not been an appeal of the decision. He said he nevet fully understood Hydro’s reason to drop the original Bruce-Essex route which had been stopped on a technicality but that there wasnodoubt there were some rich people along that route who didn’t want a power line going over their cottage. Ontario Hydroclaimed it was just a matter of time before a line to London was built anyway but, he said, if there was no appeal the matter wouldn’t likely come before cabinet and he would not be able to argue on behalf of the Huron farmers. Jack Riddell, Ontario Agricul­ ture Minister, however, said there hadbeen lots of assurances and reassurances from the federal government that marketing boards would not be negotiated away but PatCarne the minister responsible for trade had promised to get rid of restrictive trade barriers and if marketing boards do not have the power to control imports, how can they function affectively. The government simply saying these things won’t be “on the table” if negotiations doesn’t work, he said because either nation can demand things be put on the table and the Americans would like to get into Canada with chickens, eggs and dairy products. He pointed out the recent remarks of Ronald Reagan about getting California wine as easily in Canada as Molson’s Ale in the U.S. and said “That has to show you folks what is on the mind of Mr. Ronald Reagan.” He warned farmers not to be complacent about federal govern­ ment assurances saying that the agreement, when reached, will be an all-or-nothing affair and it would be a case of accepting it or rejecting it, not making changes in it. He urged them to get involved and make their opinions known before it is too late. “Don’t be complacent. Don’t take assurances that marketing boards will be left as they are.” Free Trade was also part of the Huron County Pork Producers brief. The Pork Producers said they weren’ t afraid for themselves since they felt they could compete in quality and efficiency anytime but they worried for the sake of Canadian packers under free trade. Mr. Riddell agreed that packers face problems and said the representatives of packing com­ panies had walked out of one discussion on free trade. They are worried, he said, that Canadian packers could be stuck with maintaining marketing boards which increase their input costs while having to compete with U.S. packers for markets. Farmers should worry, he said because if all the packing business ends up in the U.S. that’s where the pigs and cattle will be raised too. Free trade was also mentioned in briefs from the Huron Cattlemen’s Association and from Huron Coun­ ty Egg Producers.