April 30, 1999                                                                                                                          For Immediate Delivery

Ottawa - Today in the House of Commons Garry Breitkreuz, Agriculture Critic for the Official Opposition questioned Agriculture Minister, Lyle Vanclief about his commitment to prairie farmers. "I hear from farmers every day who are frustrated with the AIDA program because it is extremely complicated and the few who are going to benefit from it will have to wait to get compensation. The Agriculture Minister has said that this program would be able to help producers get through this income crunch. I have yet to see one farmer benefit from this AIDA program," Breitkreuz stated.

Here is the record of what took place in the House of Commons today:

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz (Yorkton—Melville, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, the agriculture minister's compensation program for farmers is as big a disaster as the economic factors that made it necessary such as the government's high taxes. Some farmers do not have money to put in their crops. There are 100,000 farmers on the prairies alone but to date not one red cent has gone out. How many more farmers have to go bankrupt before he acknowledges that his program is a complete disaster?

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz (Yorkton—Melville, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, the minister is blaming everybody else because the money is not in the farmers' pockets. The government knew a long time ago that money was needed in February. It promised the money and it broke all of its promises. The promised disaster relief that was supposed to be there has been replaced with red tape. How can the minister say he is helping farmers when he is doing virtually nothing for western producers? Why should the farmers believe the minister's statement that cash is flowing when they have received nothing?

Mr. Joe McGuire (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, before money can flow to a farmer under this program, there has to be applications made and processed. To this point only in excess of 500 applications from the farmers from the honourable member's province have been filled out and sent in. The minister has already stated that money will be flowing from those applications that have been processed and it will continue to be accelerated as time goes on.

Breitkreuz interpreted the Parliamentary Secretary’s response, "Read the government’s lips, ‘If the program’s not working, it’s the farmers fault.’ The government should admit that this is a complete disaster and fix it right now. Stop playing politics with the livelihood of so many people. Five hundred applications from 100,000 farmers - how can the Minister possibly say the program is working?"

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