The provincial government, after much deliberation and evaluation of current programs in an effort to find funding cuts, has announced that funding for the 284 primary Agricultural Societies in the province, including the Cochrane and District Ag Society, will remain intact for now.   

Alberta's Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Oneil Carlier said, "Our government has been in the process of assessing the current budget to find savings in order to fairly and responsibly reduce the deficit.  As part of this, we assessed the current funding levels for Agricultural Societies. 

We know and understand the good work that those organizations do in small towns and rural communities across the province and how they make life better for rural Albertans.  I'm pleased that we have decided that the funds budgeted for Ag Societies will not be reduced in this fiscal year.  These funds will be disbursed soon and we will continue to be in close contact with Ag Societies."

Justin Burwash, the President of the Cochrane and District Agricultural Society is pleased with the announcement.  

"Normally we'll receive our operating grant funding cheque in June of every year and as time dragged on we started to get a little nervous.  So the  Alberta Association of Agricutural Societies (AAAS) started asking the questions too and, as you can imagine, we were a little nervous when we found out everything was under review and that's why it was held up.  So to receive news that everything was going to proceed as normal is obviously a big relief."

Burwash says he was part of the lobbying efforts by AAAS.     "When we did find out it (government funding) was under review and our grant funding was being threatened, I wrote an email letter to the Premier and the Agriculture Minister as well as our MLA Cam Westhead."

Burwash says it didn't take long to get a response from the government.   "To their credit within 24 hours I had the office of the Minister of Agriculture call me directly and try to explain what they were doing and try to give some assurances that this review wasn't going to result in any material difference in the grant funding program."

Burwash says that the uncertainty of the government funding hasn't delayed any plans for the Cochrane Ag Society but that's not likely true for all Ag Societies in the province.

"We've got enough oprerating reserves that we continued as normal for this length of time without impacting anything but there could be other Ag Societies in Alberta that weren't quite as lucky and had to make some tough choices through that extended period of time."

Burwash believes that, while the government's announcement of no reduced funding for the current fiscal is positive, he's still worried about the fiscal just finished and the one that's currently being budgeted for.

"This funding that we still haven't received, but have been told it's comingm is actually related to our 2016 operating year and that was one of the main points I wanted to make to the government was that the funding that they were reviewing and potentially adjusting was related to costs that have occured a year and a half ago. 

Our year end finishes up September 30th so that cheque we're waiting for was for expenses incurred up to September 30th, 2016.  We haven't even sent them the September 30th, 2017 one.  As you can imagine, we're building our budget for 2018 now and 2016 and 2017 are gone.  We've done all of our budgeting, structured all of our fees and made all plans according to having a similar grant program in place. 

If they had gone down the road to adjusting the cheque that we're to received very shortly it would have been a big blow 'cause that would have meant two fiscal years have passed under an assumption of a different grant program and we would't have been able to adjust our fees or react to a different grant program until obviously the future fiscal year which has just begun so we would have been in a big hole based on what our expectations were and on what previous actions were by the government up until now."

Burwash wants to see a firm commitment for the funding program for 2017 and 2018. 

"They've kind of fired a warning shot in my mind that they're going to look at this.   Maybe they've looked at it and said, 'no, we're good' but maybe they've looked at it and said, 'no, we're good for 2016 but any future cheques are going to have different funding programs which would put us in a tough spot for sure."

Burwash believes that you really can't measure how much the Ag Society adds to the fabric of Cochrane. 

"We're home to several different user groups like BMX, the Cochrane Pony Club, the Roping Club and Cochrane Horse Trials.  We also provide a venue for many different bookings and activities throughout the year.  We do the Cochrane Fair which continues to grow and be very successful.  We provide these anchor events that sort of create community and really create social and economic benefits to the town and the residents of Rocky View."

Burwash is anxious to read the government's correspondence that comes with the cheque for 2016. 

"I'm assuming there's some sort of letter that will explain themselves a little bit more and what their intentions are.  Once we see that I guess I'll have a better answer of whether for 2017 we're going to be in a hole for the year that just passed and whether we have to adjust for the future year."