The Rural Voice, 2000-05, Page 47Dutot, saying the leasing agents do
not have to be licensed and don't
seem to be accountable to anyone,
asked Johns to look into requiring
licenses just as agents selling
electricity must be licensed. In one
case the agents kept hounding an
elderly woman to sign a lease, he
said.
As well, lease rates offered range
from $5 an acre in the Bayfield area
to $3 an acre in the Dungannon area,
Dutot said. In Lambton. where
there's a strong landowners group,
the going rate is $30 an acre, he said.
Dutot said the Huron landowners
need financial funding to be able to
get fair representation before the
Ontario Energy Board. The Lambton
group, with 300 members, spent
$200,000 in legal fees, he said.
Huron has only a handful of
landowners in its association and
they can't afford representation of
expert lawyers that can run to $3,000
a day.
Johns offered to deliver
information from the group to the
energy board. In the meantime, she
suggested, more people should refuse
to sign the leases.0
Steckle chides
groups opposed
to western aid
1t was a sad day for agriculture
when some Ontario farm groups
opposed aid to western grain farmers,
Huron -Bruce MP Paul Steckle told
Huron farm leaders attending the
annual Members of Parliament
dinner, March 25.
Steckle said he was "taken aback"
by some of the Ontario complaints,
led by the Ontario Corn Producers,
that western wheat and canola
farmers were getting preferential
treatment. The situation in the west
was unique, he said. He held up a
two-page list of forced tax sales in
Saskatchewan. "I haven't seen
anything like this in Ontario," he
said.
He also told of a group of 30
western farm women who visited hid
office who were ready to leave their
husbands for the good of their
News
children.
Maybe all Ontario farmers need to
suffer from an ice storm to get some
perspective, Steckle suggested,
recalling how governments had
rallied with special funding to help
eastern Ontario farmers hit by the
devastating 1998 ice storm.
Steckle suggested rural Canada was
in trouble "if we're going to look
across the fenceline and say he (the
neighbour) got more than I did
because his crop got hit".
But Bob Down, past president of
the Ontario Corn Producers defended
the complaints. There are grain and
oil seed producers in Ontario who are
also suffering, he said. The program
announced for western farmers was
"strictly a political move," he said.
Furthermore, he said, "You
wouldn't have the same problem in
the west if they'd kept their market
revenue program (as Ontario did)".0
Johns hears
complaints about
OMAFRA cuts
The discussion remained polite but
several farm groups expressed their
concerns, March 25, to Huron -Bruce
MPP Helen Johns over cuts to the
service of the Ontario Ministry of
Agriculture and Food.
In what Huron County Federation
of Agriculture President Pat Down
described as probably one of the last
large meetings to be held in the
OMAFRA boardroom in Clinton
before its close, several people
expressed concern about where farm
groups will meet in future.
"There were 500 meetings in here
last year," noted Jim Love, reeve of
Hay Township. "I don't know where
they're going to meet. It's ludicrous."
"Some of us see this as a time
bomb," said Down of the lack of
meeting facilities.
Others pointed out other problems
with OMAFRA's closing of county
extension offices. Evert Ridder of the
federation's environment committee,
noted that Ag Rep Daryl Ball had
been a helpful source of information
and advice for initiatives such as the
Huron County Water Quality
Coalition and the Huron Farm
Environmental Mediation Committee
but that help is being lost. As well
the water quality coalition would
have difficulty if it mutt rent rooms
for its meetings, he said.
• The Huron County Wheat
Producers also complained about the
lack of meeting facilities and the
support of staff in the Clinton office.
Noting OMAFRA staff did such
duties as conducting elections for
commodity organizations, the wheat
producer's representative Peter
Heinrich suggested perhaps Johns
herself would like to take over that
task.
Heinrich asked that the government
provide OMAFRA with enough
funding to continue variety trials for
all crops, including wheat. "These
independent trials are a vital source
of information for today's farmer."
he said, noting that without
independent evaluation farmers are
left at the mercy of seed salesmen.0
Federal, provincial
politicians snipe over
Grey County briefs
A Grey County Federation of
Agriculture brief on farm income and
safety nets got federal and provincial
politicians sniping at each other at
the Federation's Members of
Parliament dinner, April 7.
The brief noted Statistics Canada
figures showed Ontario's real farm
income had fallen by 50 per cern in
14 years from more than $1 billion in
1985-89 to $512 million in 1994-98
with estimates that farm income in
1999 would be even less at $302
million. While most of the decline
has been due to low prices, net
government payments to farmers
have increased by more than 70 per
cent.
The brief called on the provincial
government to:
• Immediately adopt and implement
the improvements to the AIDA
announced by the federal government
last November.
• Eliminate the link to the Net
Income Stabilization Program.
• Allow applicants to value
inventories the same as for income
tax purposes.
MAY 2000 43