anyone looking for hard evidence that the Ontario Fiberals could care less about the basics and are only interested in feathering their own nests, need look no further than what they considered to be "priorities" in their recently imposed provincial budget. The budget was basically a vote-buy, bribing voters in the GTa and other urban centers with their own money, thinking that come the next election, their victory is in the bag.
While farmers literally begged the Premier for some financial relief, in the end Mr. McGuinty slapped them in the face by actually reducing agricultural program spending by about $240 million. at the same time, McGuinty found a spare $1.2 billion laying around the office that was quickly earmarked for urban infrastructure expenditures to secure Toronto's "blonde" mayor's undying support.
While the Liberals aren't all that good in math when it comes to the province's finances, they do know how to count potential voters. and even the dullest of them could tell that there are a lot more votes in the cities than there are in rural areas. as such, the budget went to where the votes are and prudence be damned. (albeit, the idea of "prudence" was much bandied about when selling the budget).
So in addition to finding extra dough for urban transit, the Libs found close to $50 million to fund "the arts" (primarily in Toronto), as well as another $30-something million for rebates on the purchase of hybrid automobiles, another great urban priority. So in effect, the budget stroked those living in cities and spanked rural residents.
But then, who needs the rural vote anyway. They're just a bunch of slow, dull-witted farmers who don't know much about anything and besides, there aren't that many of them.
It seems that Mr. McGuinty and his party have forgotten where our food comes from. I know most people think it comes from the supermarket, all pre-packaged in plastic or cardboard, but the fact is our food comes from farms. Now these farms may not all be located in Ontario, as we tend to import a great deal of food, especially during the winter. But punishing local farmers with onerous taxes, marketing boards and the like will just ensure that we are going to be importing a lot more food in the future as more and more farmers decide to pack it in.
Farms are an important part of our economy, without which we would not be having an economy, or one so fragile that we would be at the mercy of those controlling the food supply. It appears that since Mr. McGuinty has managed to get himself elected Premier, the farmer's lot in life has gotten progressively worse.
It started a few years ago, immediately after the Libs slithered into the government benches, with the re-classification of maple syrup farms as "industrial" operations, which meant that farmers who were in the business of making and selling maple syrup had their property taxed under industrial tax rates rather than agricultural. anyone who knows anything about family farms, knows that very few of these businesses manage to survive on the basis of a single product. Most family farms survive by selling multiple farm products such as hay, beef, pork, chickens, eggs, vegetables, firewood and maple syrup. Some farms sell all of the above to make ends meet. If you start to raise a farmer's taxes because he produces maple syrup, then you are limiting that farmer's ability to survive.
The next thing the Libs started toying with is adjusting the agricultural tax rate, meaning that many farmers saw unreasonable and devastating tax increases, forcing some to sell their lands, which in many cases had been family owned for hundreds of years.
If we continue to lay disincentives at the feet of farmers, the family farm will ultimately disappear and our food supply will be in jeopardy. That's because food doesn't really come from the supermarket. Food really comes from farmers. So the next time you're enjoying a sizzling steak or a stack of flapjacks with maple syrup, you might want to think about the farmer who produced your food. You might even wish to go so far as to remind the Libs that farmers are a necessary part of our economy.
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