March 25, 1999                                                                                                                For Immediate Delivery

AIDA PROGRAM A MAKE WORK PROJECT FOR BUREAUCRATS AND ACCOUNTANTS

"Minister Vanclief should pay more attention to what farmers are telling him and less to his bureaucrats."

Ottawa – Last night in the House of Commons, Garry Breitkreuz responded to Agriculture Minister Lyle Vanclief’s claims that comments the Yorkton-Melville MP made in the House last week were "absolutely false." Last week in the House, Breitkreuz revealed that farmers would have to pay between $500 and $1000 to have accountants prepare their application forms for the government’s new disaster assistance program. Breitkreuz asked Agriculture Minister Lyle Vanclief, "Why is the Minister giving western producers more bills to pay instead of the disaster assistance they need?" Vanclief declared that this was absolutely false and went on to explain that farmers simply have to transfer information already available on their income tax forms and NISA forms to the AIDA application.

Last night, Breitkreuz used Adjournment Proceedings in House to expose a few "falsehoods" in the Minister’s statement. Breitkreuz did some checking on his own. Here are the facts he reported to the government after calling a number of accountants in Saskatchewan:

  1. In order to prove their level of inventory, farmers will need to produce grain tickets or permit books as well as crop insurance documentation;
  2. AIDA forms not only ask how much wheat a producer has, but what grade and protein content it is;
  3. Farmers will not be able to use the cash basis to determine what their inventories were. Getting accurate records to comply with the accrual method on the AIDA forms is going to be quite a struggle;
  4. Even when the AIDA forms are filled out, there is no way of knowing how much compensation the farmer will actually receive;
  5. Producers who are not part of NISA will have another 8 pages of forms to fill out;
  6. The deadline for filing completed AIDA applications in Saskatchewan is June 15th. Producers in Ontario and Alberta have until July 31st
  7. Finally, the AIDA forms do not accurately represent a farmer’s true financial situation because the application does not take into account any bills or outstanding lines of credit that the farmer may have.

Rather than answering Breitkreuz’ questions directly, the Minister’s Parliamentary Secretary Joe McGuire (P.E.I) continued to defend the simplicity of the AIDA application. "Farmers are telling me that when they see the 50 pages of AIDA forms and instructions, they get extremely frustrated. Many wonder if it is worth taking the time to fill out the AIDA application. They will not be entitled to anything anyway because of the way the program is structured," Breitkreuz told the House. "Why did the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food create a make-work project for bureaucrats and accountants instead of a simple cost-effective system the farmers were asking for?" While the Liberals were ignoring another valid question from western grain farmers, ads were running in Saskatchewan papers hiring 30 Claims Officers and a Manager for the new AIDA program at a cost of approximately $2.5 million.

-30-

The Office of Garry Breitkreuz, M.P.

Yorkton: (306) 782-3309
Ottawa: (613) 992-4394