My Speeches

33, the Agriculture Financial Services Amendment Act. I really

want to express my appreciation to the hon. Member for Leduc-

Beaumont-Devon for his assistance in moving A1. The amendment

is a little bit confusing sometimes, I suppose. It proposes to amend

section 3 of Bill 33, which, in turn, amends section 20 of the act.

The amendment clarifies the appropriate advances for the various

programs, allowing Agriculture Financial Services to meet its

obligations. Presently section 21 allows the minister to requisition

the minister of finance for advances from the general revenue fund

to Ag Financial Services Corporation to meet Alberta’s obligations

under federal-provincial agreements dealing with cost-shared

programs. That specifically is crop insurance within Agriculture

Financial Services.

Mr. Chairman, section 20 currently allows for the Lieutenant

Governor in Council to authorize advances from the general revenue

fund to allow Ag Financial Services to meet its obligation for

Alberta-only insurance programs, including those that are funded by

producers, such as hail insurance and the proposed cattle price

insurance program, or CPIP for short, for livestock. Bill 33 changes

the term “crop insurance” to “agricultural product insurance” to

include livestock insurance, but section 21 only provided advances

for federal-provincial cost-shared programs. It does not provide

advances for livestock insurance or hail insurance, which are

producer-funded insurance programs and not covered by federalprovincial

agreement.

The amendments to section 20 currently proposed in Bill 33 could

be interpreted, Mr. Chairman, to leave a gap in funding for Ag

Financial Services Corporation’s provincial programs, resulting in

the AFSC being unable to meet its obligations. Provincial insurance

programs such as the livestock insurance program, CPIP, that I

mentioned earlier, and the hail insurance program need to include

advances that allow Ag Financial Services Corporation to meet its

obligations. It’s a must. This rationale for the amendment now

before the House for consideration is critical and is supposed to

address that. The intent of the amendment to Bill 33, Mr. Chairman,

is to provide for advances for provincial insurance for agriculture

products not provided for under section 21, which only included

federal-provincial programs.

I ask all members to give their full support to this amendment, and

I’d be happy to answer any questions should any member of the

House have any. Thank you.