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HEADINGLEY, Man. — Stéphane Dion is doling out more Liberal largesse with a four-year, $1.2-billion package to support Canadian farmers.
Mr. Dion's measures include a $400-million tax credit for farms that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and a $250-million Green Farms Fund for farmers to invest in energy-efficient technology.
There's a $564-million Regional Flexibility Fund to help farmers pay for environmental solutions, business risk management and production costs.
And there's also a $30-million program to promote local farmers' markets and homegrown foods.
Liberal leader Stephane Dion announces his agricultural policy on a farm just west of Winnipeg on Friday. (Reuters)
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Mr. Dion says the Liberals would also call for a full cost rail review and halt short-line rail closures to allow more consultation with stakeholders.
He also says a Liberal government would give farmers full control over the Canadian Wheat Board.
“For too long, we have dealt only with disasters in agriculture,” Mr. Dion said in a statement.
“With this plan, a Liberal government will work in partnership with farmers to build a brighter future for Canadian farm families.”
Later in the day, Mr. Dion derided the Conservatives for their crime policy, saying it has a faulty U.S.-style reliance on putting more people in jail for longer terms.
Mr. Dion proposed two new funds totalling $125-million to combat guns and gangs.
In Regina, where the city's former police chief, Cal Johnston, is running as a Liberal candidate, Mr. Dion said the Tories have engaged in scare-mongering around crime to bring in a policy aimed at locking more people up – which he said has not worked in the U.S.
Instead, Mr. Dion promised to create an $80-million fund that local police forces could use for the expensive work of investigating organized crime and gangs – work that stretched forces often cannot afford to do.
He also called for a $45-million fund to support community-based prevention funds to try to steer youth away from gangs.
Mr. Dion said he believes in “meaningful” sentences but the Tories have focused only on long sentences, and left out other elements to a crime strategy.
“In the United States, they had a boom in jails and prisons. It did not decrease their crime rate. It increased their recidivism rate,” he said.
He said the Tories' 2006 campaign promise to fund 2,500 new local police officers was broken.
The Liberals also promised to bring back the Law Commission of Canada, which the Conservatives cut, and ask it to conduct a full review of sentences in the Criminal Code.
And he pledged to create offences for Internet luring of children and "cyber-bullying."
