CRITICS of the decision by agriculture minister Gerry Ritz to appeal the court ruling quashing federal attempts to end the barley monopoly through regulation rather than legislation had a field day last week.
It was a waste of taxpayers’ money.
It was ideology over common sense.
It was the latest example of prime minister Stephen Harper’s vendetta against a prairie symbol of farmer power.
It was ….. well, the picture is clear. It was a democratic, moral, political and legal outrage!
It was even, and this is a curious argument, an attempt by the Conservatives to continue to break the law since a court already has ruled it illegal.
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Actually, it is a decision by the Conservatives to challenge the validity of the court ruling, the very reason the appeal court system was established and something governments and citizens do every day.
Not all court decisions are written on stone and passed down from heaven. Some are reversed on appeal.
Nonetheless, the critics were able to associate Ritz with all the baggage they have hung on former minister Chuck Strahl and Harper – undemocratic, contemptuous of courts and Parliament, arrogant and bullies.
That is what oppositions do and good on them.
But behind the political histrionics of farmer power versus farmer freedom, there is another reality.
Ritz and the Conservatives had little political option but to appeal the decision. It buys them time.
A significant slice of the Conservative base on the Prairies consists of farmers and their friends who are adamant, theologically convinced, that forcing farmers to sell their property through a collective marketing board is wrong.
They are far from the majority of Conservative voters but they are a powerful and vocal constituency. Ritz had to signal to them that the government remains committed to ending the CWB monopoly.
To meekly concede defeat to a judge in Calgary would be a signal that the Conservatives went through the motions to fulfill their anti-monopoly promises but really, it was not a priority.
Ritz had to convince those for whom this is a core issue that the Conservatives are serious and they will fight to establish marketing choice.
The sub-message is clear: we’re doing what we can, fellas, we’re following the rules so be patient, give us time to do it properly.
Why would the Conservatives care about pandering to this anti-CWB vote? Surely they are not concerned about losing seats on this issue.
Probably not, but the danger of inaction is not really at the ballot box.
What if their anti-CWB supporters decided the government wasn’t serious about pursuing the file and decided to take the law into their own hands?
What if they decided to run the border, daring the law-and-order Conservatives to prosecute them for thumbing their noses at a law the government opposes?
It would be a political and legal nightmare for the Harper government.
Better to spend some dollars and time on an appeal so they can assure supporters they are using the system to achieve the goal, so they can counsel them to be patient.
That is one of the real motives behind last week’s appeal decision.
