Tax not regulate
Soiled undies
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A lighthearted experiment shows the power of soil » Pg 20
SERVING MANITOBA FARMERS SINCE 1925 | Vol. 75, No. 16 | $1.75
april 20, 2017
Provincial budget makes no cuts to municipal funding
manitobacooperator.ca
NAFTA negotiations key for farmers, say commentators In separate speeches Andrew Coyne and Sylvain Charlebois predicted while supply management is under the gun, there’s more at stake
More flexibility in how grant monies can be allocated welcomed, says AMM president BY LORRAINE STEVENSON Co-operator staff
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unicipal leaders are relieved there will be no direct cuts coming to local government funding in 2017, says the head of the province’s municipal lobby. Provincial funding for municipalities will remain at the same level in 2017 as it was last year, said Association of Manitoba Municipalities (AMM) president Chris Goertzen shortly after hearing details of the provincial budget last week. “There’s a few positives we can take out of this,” he said. “Obviously they have a fiscal challenge in front of them, and they aren’t balancing the books on the backs of municipalities, which we think is favourable.” Provincial Finance Minister Cameron Friesen laid out a 2017-18 budget April 11 with an overall $840-million deficit, based on a four per cent increase in revenues at $16.1 billion and a 3.1 per cent increase in expenditures at $17.06 billion compared to its 2016-17 budget. See BUDGET on page 6 »
Upcoming NAFTA negotiations could spill a lot of milk for dairy producers — and that’s just the beginning according to two well-known commentators.
BY ALLAN DAWSON Co-operator staff / Calgary
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PHOTO: REUTERS / CHRIS WATTIE
U.S.-led effort to renegotiate NAFTA could see supply management scrapped, but that’s just the beginning, say two Canadian commentators. Speaking separately at the Canadian Global Crops Symposium April 12, the National Post’s Andrew Coyne and Dalhousie University’s Sylvain Charlebois both said the North American Free Trade Agreement could provide the pretext for major changes in agriculture and the economy at large. NAFTA, which includes Mexico, took effect in 1994, superseding the Canada-U.S. Trade Agreement of 1988. “(NAFTA) is probably the biggest single,
short-term issue facing this (Canadian) government,” Coyne told the conference of more than 200 grain industry members. “If the Americans demand we get rid of supply management, I for one will not be shedding many tears.” Sylvain Charlebois expects that’s exactly what the Americans will do. “They know right now supply management is under a lot of stress,” Charlebois, Dalhousie University’s dean of the faculty of management said in his end-of-conference address. “Supply management now is a mess just because of the tensions going on around NAFTA, around protein dairy coming into the Canadian market, CETA (European Union trade pact) is creating a breach in the quota system,” he said. “There’s no direction, there’s no strat-
egy and the Americans know that. They want to take advantage of that I think. “NAFTA will become a major catalyst for change.” When running for president, Donald Trump threatened to “tear up” NAFTA if a better deal for the U.S. isn’t reached. After the election Trump said the trade agreement would only be “tweaked.” But depending on who is speaking in the Trump administration there could be a “fundamental overhaul,” Coyne said. Charlebois says it’s the latter, based on U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’s comments last week. “We are starting to see that NAFTA 2.0 is not just going to be a change on the cover, there is going to be more,” he said. “It is going to be more substantive.” See NAFTA on page 6 »
Pollinator promotion: Program aims for 3,000 acres of habitat in Manitoba » PAGE 19