The soon-to-be ratified Canada-U.S. free trade agreement was much in the news in 1987, but as indicated by this editorial cartoon from our Oct. 1 issue, free trade between provinces, as today, still seemed elusive.
We reported that Canadian hog and cattle farmers were enthusiastic about the free trade deal, but that supply management producers were worried about a proposed phase-out of some tariffs.
Returning from a meeting of the International Federation of Agricultural Producers in Geneva, Manitoba Pool president Bill Strath said representatives called for short- and long-term solutions to overproduction that was holding down world grain prices.
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In another sign of tough times, the Farm Credit Corporation had sent the federal cabinet a study warning about financial stress on Canadian farms. It said 13,760 farmers were “nearly insolvent” with debts of $1.7 billion. Twenty-one per cent of FCC’s clients were in arrears of $343 million, with 6,100 farmers two or more years past due. It said that if nothing was done, 18,500 clients would be bankrupted in the next several years, 31 per cent of them in Saskatchewan.
In an unusual sign of solidarity among organizations with fundamental policy differences, the National Farmers Union, Keystone Agricultural Producers, the Manitoba Cattle Producers Association and the Manitoba Cattle Feeders Association had sent a letter to newly appointed Agriculture Minister Len Harapiak, asking for immediate action to slow the stampede of calves leaving the province that fall. They asked for short-term assistance of $50 per head to offset cattle-feeding subsidies in B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan.
