Mr. Speaker, the publication Agriweek sums up the opinions of thousands of prairie producers affected by the Crow buyout. I quote:
The buyout exercise-is turning out to be distressingly like other government clerical undertakings: disorganized, confused, rigid, user unfriendly. Whoever designed this could not have had even a passing acquaintance with the workings of prairie agriculture and no one with experience in such things could have been consulted.
Except for the agriminister's admonition a fair arrangement should be made, there has been no guidance of any sort as to what would be fair and the payments office has scrupulously avoided giving any advice. Neither owners nor tenants could know what others were doing.
The landlord-tenant split of the payment will go down in history as among the most bizarre rules of any government farm program ever invented, as well as a source of owner-renter friction for years to come.
Prairie farmers know Liberal agricultural policies and programs usually end up a wreck.