A changing of the guard among key agricultural players in the federal government may be imminent because prime minister Jean Chrétien appointed a new batch of parliamentary secretaries for the House of Commons sitting that begins Jan. 27.
Once sittings begin, there will be a new chair of the Commons agriculture committee, a new chair of the influential Liberal rural caucus and significant changes in the government members assigned to the agriculture committee.
These changes are being forced because:
- Quebec MP Claude Duplain was appointed parliamentary secretary to agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief, replacing Ontario MP Larry McCormick.
- Former agriculture committee chair Charles Hubbard was named parliamentary secretary to the Indian affairs minister.
- Liberal rural caucus chair and agriculture committee vice-chair Murray Calder has been named parliamentary secretary to international trade minister Pierre Pettigrew.
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Each cabinet minister has an MP assistant who keeps up-to-date on the files and replaces the minister at public meetings or in the Commons when requested. The appointments mean the Liberal government will be appointing at least two new MPs to the agriculture committee.
Hubbard’s move off the agriculture committee had been predicted by some Liberal and opposition MPs ever since he oversaw a vote at the committee last year that led to the Liberal-dominated committee recommending a trial suspension of the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly.
The vote angered other Liberals. Hubbard did not help his cause when he later said that since prairie rural constituencies return anti-monopoly Canadian Alliance MPs to Ottawa, who are eastern-based Liberals to say they are wrong?
Calder’s appointment as parliamentary secretary to the trade minister also was notable.
He is a Holstein, Ont., chicken farmer and an advocate of supply management.
As a member of the agriculture committee and chair of rural caucus, he often expressed skepticism that the trade and agriculture department bureaucracies really are committed to defending supply management protective tariffs during World Trade Organization talks.
Last week in an interview, he said he is going to use his newly acquired access to the internal trade policy debates to press the point.
“I certainly will be letting them know that our policy must include preservation of the tariffs or otherwise the industry cannot control supply and that is the basis of the system,” he said from his farm. “I have been skeptical in the past of whether they really understand or support that. Yes. I still am.”
A source in Agriculture Canada said last week that senior departmental officials were considering proposing that compromise on supply management be considered at the WTO if it would lead to U.S. and European Union agreement to also give greater access.
Part of the pitch being considered, said the source, was a reminder that supply management is concentrated in just two provinces, that its political clout often has exceeded its economic importance compared to export interests and that export sectors will fight hard in this negotiation “to ensure that their interests are not sacrificed in the negotiations in favour of the supply managed minority.”
However, there would be a multi-billion price tag of compensation for loss of quota value if Canada agreed to cut tariffs.
It could not be confirmed if those points will in fact be included in Agriculture Canada’s presentation to a meeting of deputy ministers.
But Calder said if they are part of the department’s thinking, he will fight it.
“I would disagree with that because that would be pitting segments of agriculture against each other and that should not be our policy.”
