Released on May 1, 2006
Saskatchewan Agriculture Minister Mark Wartman said he remains hopeful that the federal government will commit to a new farm aid package in tomorrow's budget.Wartman said the province's farmers need $575 million in short term aid for spring seeding and a separate disaster program that deals with the impact of international subsidies, drought and flooding.
"I traveled with a number of farm groups to Ottawa on April 11th to outline the severity of the problems our producers face this spring," Wartman said. "We met with Federal Agriculture Minister Chuck Strahl at that time as well as a number of the federal party caucuses and Members of Parliament from Saskatchewan. I expect that the government should recognize those problems in tomorrow's federal budget."
Wartman said Ottawa must take a leadership role in dealing with what have become national problems – income shortfalls at the farmgate and the absence of a national program able to deal with local or provincial agricultural disasters. This is consistent with the Conservative Party Election Platform which stated that "A Conservative Government will be ready to take a leadership role when disaster strikes, and fund disaster relief separately from income stabilization".
"A representative from the Porcupine Plain area – one of those hardest hit by flooding – spoke to my federal counterpart about this personally when we traveled to Ottawa," Wartman said. "Minister Strahl seemed deeply concerned by the situation and said he was prepared to look at options to help."
The province has declared Porcupine Plain a disaster area. Wartman said the best help for producers in northeastern Saskatchewan would be a new, nationally-funded disaster program specifically for agriculture. Provincial officials would be available to work with the federal government to help implement such a program in order to speed up delivery to farmers.
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