Chairman Rajotte and finance committee members, thank you for the opportunity to present to the pre-budget consultations.
William and I are members of the Ontario-Quebec Grain Farmers’ Coalition. We represent 41,000 farmers from Windsor, Ontario, to Rimouski, Quebec.
In the context of this year's pre-budget consultations, we are very fortunate to live in Canada. Our land is vast and fertile and our work ethic and entrepreneurial spirit have given us the resilience to weather these difficult economic times. Agriculture is the backbone of our rural communities and economies, providing employment, creating wealth, and providing Canadians with an affordable and secure supply of food.
Our presentation will focus on the agricultural flexibility fund, or AgriFlex, announced in the 2009 budget. The federal government has shown strong commitment to agriculture, and we are encouraged by some of the government's measures, including opening up world markets to Canadian farmers by signing free trade agreements, replacing CAIS with the new “Growing Forward” agenda, investing in infrastructure, and making changes to the Canadian Agricultural Loans Act by freeing up credit for young farmers.
In the 2009 budget we saw the announcement of the agricultural flexibility fund, or AgriFlex. This fund allows the provinces more flexibility in delivering needed programming. However, more needs to be done. The federal government must open the agricultural flexibility fund to business risk management programs.
It is imperative that we have agriculture programs in place that are responsive and sufficiently funded. The original AgriFlex proposal, as proposed by the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, was intended to fund BRM programs. This would allow Ontario to support the risk management program for its grain growers and allow Quebec to support Le programme d'assurance stabilisation des revenus agricoles, or ASRA.