C.A.I.S. Good News!

[CattleAnnie]

M.P.s vote to drop CAIS deposits
by Kevin Hursh




A motion demanding that cash deposits from farmers be dropped as a requirement of the CAIS (Canadian Agricultural Income Stabilization) program has passed in the House of Commons. However, that does not necessarily mean the deposit will be dropped.

The motion was tabled by Official Opposition Agriculture Critic Diane Finley and debated in the House on February 3.

The vote on the motion was on February 8. It had the unanimous support of the Conservatives, the Bloc Quebecois and the NDP and passed with 158 votes in favour and 114 against. The Liberal government did not support the motion and it is not binding on the government.

Agriculture Minister Andy Mitchell has said that changing CAIS deposits requires agreement from a majority of the provinces since it is a federal–provincial program.

[grassmarketeer]

That is very good news. I hope the gov't sees that it was ludicrous to take from our cash flow or instead let the banks do a quick 3% money grab by taking a loan.

[WoolyBear]

The only ones getting any cash out of this program are non farmers....... Accountants, consultants, the CAIS processors, the banks/credit unions etc.

The same goes for most government plans........ just wait and see what P'AGs are going to charge to do manure management plans, the engineers to certify manure storage structures, the filing of the new Farm Environmental Plans, all of the inspectors to check up on us cheating farmers....... the Food Safety check by the veterinarians, and the list goes on and on and on

[cowman]

Wooly Bear: Got to agree with you! The government is pretty well out of control on all these programs. Sometimes I think they come up with all these goofy programs so they can keep all the robots that come out of school employed! After all if they didn't have all these silly ideas who would hire these highly educated sheep? I often wonder how Canada might operate if they didn't have all these little "experts" who basically don't have a clue about much of anything? I always laugh when I read or hear some "expert" tell farmers how they need to learn how to do things like the professors told them! When in fact neither the professors or the little "experts" have ever done anything but sit in some class room or lab!
But hey, if you don't have a few letters after your name, what do you know, right?
I wonder why it is that most successful entrepreneurs are usually dropouts? Do you think it might have something to do with the fact that they weren't sheep and could actually think for themselves?
When I trotted the boy off to university he came back with a degree in business! Unfortunately they never taught him anything about the real world! One time when I was giving him a lecture on how to deal with people and I asked him, in some frustration, "Didn't you learn anything in school?"
His reply, after a bit of thought "Well, I learned how to drink beer and screw girls!"
Well what could I say! Got me laughing and I replied "Well I guess that is pretty important too! At least your time and my money wasn't totally wasted!"

[farmers_son]

Well Cowman, I hope your son never reads your comments in these threads. Your son should be congratulated for completing his business degree not called a sheep or a robot. You will find you have a lot to learn from him. You said “I often wonder how Canada might operate if they didn't have all these little "experts" who basically don't have a clue about much of anything?” Well you only have to look to any third world nation with a high rate of illiteracy if you need an example.

“Sometimes I think they come up with all these goofy programs so they can keep all the robots that come out of school employed!” If you had said the government comes up with these programs so they can have a detailed and complete picture of agricultural inventories, cash flows, net worth you would be closer to the mark. I question whether CAIS is really about providing a safety net to farmers since it is designed to allow farmers to fall through the safety net after only 4 bad years in a row as we have already seen in this province. No reference margin, no safety net. Four strikes and the batter’s out.

What is the difference between having cash in CAIS and cash in NISA? Well for one thing, if we put cash in NISA we automatically got those funds matched by the Federal Government, every year – good or bad. We are told that the cash deposit is needed to keep CAIS green. However CAIS is very much like FIDP which did not need a cash deposit and I presume FIDP was green too. Apparently green is in the eye of the beholder, in this case the bankers and government.

In the recent WTO Doha Development Agreement Canada found it self totally isolated, not part of the G20 or the NG5 (US, EU, Australia, Brazil and India). The agreement Canada signed will see support to agriculture significantly reduced and given Canada’s history of being one of the first nations to fulfill those kind of obligations I expect to see any revamping of CAIS designed so it provides less support to farmers, not more. Farmers calling for changes to CAIS may find the gods punish us by granting our wishes.

See: http://www.globalization101.org/news.asp?NEWS_ID=70

[grassfarmer]

I spoke to the accountant last week about CAIS and he said the Government made farmers put down a deposit because that was what was needed to comply with WTO rules so it didn't appear as a subsidy. A Government official has recently backtracked on that statement and said that in fact they wanted farmers to put in a deposit "to prove they were committed to the program"

He also told me that because the process is taking too long to make payments there is a thread that the Feds will take over running the Alberta CAIS program - which would be a bad outcome for us as the Federal program has worse conditions than our own. Don't know what that all means - it was in accountant speak.

[ALICIA]

I was told to put $688.00 in my account almost a year ago now. So far I have recieved two payments of $1.98 interest from my bank. The bank put the interest in my checking account and my c.a.i.s. account is still regestering $688.00, thats a good thing because my savings account is charged 5.00 permonth for having it. I closed the savings account because I only had $100.00 in it and when I noticed that I was losing $5.00 a month I closed the account and got $80.00. Told the account was unacctive so they had to put a service charge on the account. What could I say, I was just glad I noticed before the bank had all my $100.00 in service charges.