The Rural Voice, 1998-05, Page 10CHRYSLER DODGE
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6 THE RURAL VOICE
Keith Roulston
Getting some other `user' to pay
It sounds so good to harried
taxpayers, the concept that the people
who use a service should pay for it.
The problem comes when you try to
determine who the "user" is.
Though we supposedly have
come to the agreement that there is
no free lunch,
user -pay is a
way to get the
same service
we've always
been used to,
but to have
somebody else
pick up the tab.
Many
farmers were
strong
supporters of
the concept of
user pays. After
all, it seemed
like a move
toward making
government more like the
marketplace. They've learned to their
chagrin that user -pay is a tax by
another name. Since the person with
the least ability to recover the cost is
being stuck with it, perhaps a better
name would be "loser pays".
Who is the real user of the food
inspection or pesticide approval
services, for instance? The Pest
Management Registration Agency
will charge chemical companies to
register their products. The
companies will pass that cost on to
the users of the product, the farmers.
The farmers, because there is no cost -
of -production recovery mechanism in
the price of most commodities, have
no way to pass on their costs to the
consumers. Yet it is consumers who
are demanding more stringent con-
trols of chemicals. For everyone past
the farmer, then, there is a free lunch.
Food inspection is another area
where the benefit goes to the
consumer, but at least here the
manufacturers and processors have
the ability to pass the added expenses
of inspection services along to the
consumer. Yet the system is set up to
protect the consumer, not the
manufacturer. There is some concern
that if the manufacturers have to pay
the bills, they'll eventually find a way
to influence the system — something
that is not in the best interests of the
consumer. The concept of user -pay,
after all, supposes there will be
economies gained by the sense of
ownership the system brings.
Faced with bearing the cost of
PMRA, for instance, farmers have
been pressuring the government to
just accept the findings of the U.S.
registration agencies. Again we're
looking for a free ride on the expense
the Americans pay to test the safety
of chemicals. But what if the
Americans also want to take a short-
cut — if they don't thoroughly
investigate the products because
they're looking to save money, we
could end up with dangerously
flawed products in use in Canada.
With our own inspection system we
have a sort of double-check system to
protect consumers.
But why should farmers pick up
the cost when they're quite happy to
go with whatever chemical the
company wants to sell? Certainly
farmers should want to be responsible
in using only safe products, but the
real beneficiaries are the public who
are protected from potentially
dangerous chemicals. And should
consumers want farmers paying
rather than having a truly
independent body?
We've been so fixated on
government cost cutting lately that
we've forgotten that many services
must be supplied by somebody,
somewhere. In reallocating costs of
programs from the government to
non-government agencies we might
not really be saving any money for
the economy as a whole, just
changing whose pocket it comes
from.
Instead of being obsessive about
government spending and cueing
taxes, maybe it's time to use a little
reason. The benefit of these inspec-
tion processes is shared by both the
industry and consumers. When they
were paid for by taxes, everybody
also paid the costs. Now, in trying to
save tax dollars, we could be under-
cutting a system that worked well.°
Keith Roulston is editor and
publisher of The Rural Voice. Ile
lives near Blyth, ON.