HOW could things have changed so much so fast?
Seven months ago, prime minister Jean Chrétien and agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief drove to an eastern Ontario farm to announce a five-year $5.2 billion investment in agriculture.
It was the culmination of months of hard work by Vanclief and deputy minister Samy Watson to secure funding and launch a new “agricultural policy framework” that promised stable safety net funding and investment in food safety, environmental programs, research and transition.
A number of farm leaders praised the vision and the financial commitment.
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A week later, seven of 10 provinces signed on in principle and Vanclief assured reporters it was just a matter of time until the dissidents signed on too.
This week, Vanclief convenes a meeting of federal and provincial agriculture ministers in Toronto and winning approval there for his plan will be crucial since he insists implementation will start April 1.
But unlike that halcyon day in June, Vanclief enters the meeting in a position of weakness.
The three dissident provinces have not signed. Almost all that initial farm support has evaporated in anger over the proposed details. Some provinces that initially signed, including powerful Ontario, have decided to withhold further co-operation on the APF until Ottawa amends its plans.
Meanwhile, the minister seems under siege from other directions.
Some farm lobbyists have been singing the praises of MP Bob Speller, who has warned that Vanclief’s somewhat uncompromising position is alienating farmers.
To make matters worse, traditional Liberal allies in the supply management sector now openly dispute Liberal support for their sector.
Vanclief seems almost without political allies, save for a few provinces that think they’ll pick up a few million in extra federal dollars.
He is even being subjected to what looks from the outside like political ridicule. Last week, Canadian Federation of Agriculture president Bob Friesen suggested that since Vanclief can’t understand the criticisms of his plans, farm opponents must draw him a picture. Ouch.
Even farm lobby groups that seem to want to sound positive are less than enthusiastically in Vanclief’s corner.
On Jan. 27, Grain Growers of Canada sent a letter to Vanclief offering him a way out of the impasse, a way to move towards the APF. Still, they demanded a year’s delay to make sure the new programs are better – a demand Vanclief has rejected.
Last week, a defender of the government vision e-mailed to take issue with criticism about Agriculture Canada’s handling of the APF file.
“It is a strategy from which to work toward a public policy environment conducive toward a competitive, profitable food sector, a sector that may be able to out-distance the competition in the race toward the safest, highest quality, most dependable, most innovative, most environmentally beneficial food in the world,” he wrote.
But if there is no buy-in from industry about implementation and little apparent interest in compromise in Ottawa, what is the value of a vision, great or not?
