Several dozen Saskatchewan farmers have vowed to continue their occupation of the provincial legislative building in Regina until the province comes up with a $400-million bailout.
"We have more people coming and we're not going away," Lillian Kurtz, a 49-year-old mother of five from a farm near Stockholm, Sask., said yesterday. She has vowed to continue a hunger strike until the province reverses its position and kicks over more cash to help struggling farmers.
"If [Premier Roy]Romanow ever wants to come back to his legislature he's going to be facing us," she said.
Mrs. Kurtz, her husband, and about two dozen grain farmers occupied the foyer and camped out in the basement cafeteria of the legislature in Regina this week to focus attention on their plight.
There is no question prairie grain producers have been battered by a precipitous worldwide dip in grain and oilseed prices. Beef and hog farmers, on the other hand, are seeing prices on the upswing for their product after several years of steeply downward price fluctuations.
Farm economists say that, ironically, Western Canada's efficient grain production capability is at the root of the income problem. Prices are depressed because there is too much grain. But unlike the United States and Europe, which have increased farm subsidies to make up for the income loss, Canada has been reducing direct subsidies to grain producers. Saskatchewan's net farm income was less than $100-million last year, dramatically down from the five-year average of $740-million.
The federal government recently announced an extra $1-billion for its national agricultural assistance program. But the leaders of the Regina protest say Saskatchewan producers require almost $1-billion themselves, just to keep afloat.
Mr. Romanow has refused more provincial aid, saying his government's ability to assist the farm sector has been tapped out. He said any further aid is a federal responsibility, and along with Manitoba and Alberta has been pressing Ottawa and other premiers to keep the agricultural-income problem on the political agenda. On Monday, the Premier was heckled by the protesters in Regina when he rejected their demands for more provincial farm aid.
But not everyone in the province agrees with the protesters, their tactics or their assumptions. In an editorial yesterday, The Saskatoon Star-Phoenix described the militants as misguided and naive if they think provincial money will help leverage even more from Ottawa.
"At worst, the protesters are the victims of opportunistic politicians who are misleading them about the ability of Saskatchewan taxpayers to shoulder this added burden," the newspaper said, chiding the rural-based opposition Saskatchewan Party for endorsing further provincial handouts to the farm sector.
"The reality is harsh, but Premier Roy Romanow is being responsible when he bluntly tells farmers that it is Ottawa's job to bail them out of this mess. It's one thing for frustrated and desperate farmers to demand that the provincial government ignore all other sectors and devote every last nickel at its disposal to agriculture. It's something else for a party that came within a couple of seats of forming government to advocate the same thing."
But while the provincial government has been targeted by farmers this week, the Saskatchewan Farm Rally Group is also hoping to keep up pressure on Ottawa. It has opened an office, called the farmers embassy, near Parliament Hill.
Meantime, the Saskatchewan protest is getting support from British Columbia grain farmer Nick Parsons. He is driving his 20-year-old Massey Ferguson 860 combine all the way to Ottawa to raise public awareness of the farm-income problem. He expects to reach the national capital in about five weeks.
"We're only getting a fraction of the price of the end product," Mr. Parsons said in an interview yesterday from near Lloydminster, Sask.
While Mr. Parsons has been farming, mostly profitably, for 30 years, now that the bottom has fallen out of grain prices it's time for government to step in, he said.
"Those people in the legislature in Regina are not there for the fun of it," he said. "And I'm not on the road for the fun of it. I'm a good farmer. But we're treated like slaves. We have an internal problem here in Canada with people taking too much of a percentage all the way from the farm gate, to the truckers, to the grocery chains like Safeway."
He said he plans to tell Prime Minister Jean Chrétien that the government should return a percentage of GST paid on all restaurant meals to those who grow Canada's food supply. "It would be billions," he said.