IN THE pages of this newspaper last week, Keystone Agricultural Producers president Ian Wishart worried that federal and provincial ministers meeting in Quebec City might procrastinate, leaving producers “spinning their wheels” waiting for program decisions.
Based on the history of drawn-out federal-provincial negotiations, it was a reasonable apprehension but it missed the current dynamic.
There seems to be remarkably little acrimony at the meetings. Decisions are made quickly, whether right or wrong from an industry point of view, and even when there are divisions, ministers seem inclined to move on.
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Quebec City was a classic example.
As Wishart pointed out, there was a full slate of issues: agreeing on a five-year non-business risk management program, inter-provincial trade barriers, continuing hurt in the livestock industry and the contentious World Trade Organization talks.
The ministers had scheduled one-and-a-half days of talks. By mid-afternoon the first day, there was little left to do. Ministers and their staffs headed into Quebec City’s mid-afternoon to enjoy the buzz of the 400th anniversary.
In part, it is a reflection of the lack of animosity between the current set of ministers. There have been times when particular federal and provincial personalities were oil and water.
In part it is a good working relationship between Agriculture Canada bureaucrats and their provincial counterparts.
“A lot of the credit goes to the amazing work officials do before we get here,” one minister said last week.
There have been times under a certain federal deputy minister when bureaucratic relations were as toxic as a tar sands duck pond. Collaboration has broken out.
And in part it is the style of federal agriculture minister Gerry Ritz, a man interested in getting from A to B in the shortest distance without the philosophical or political side roads that led former ministers into long distractions at ministers’ meetings.
When Ritz spins his wheels, it is to burn rubber, to go from zero to 60 in 10 seconds.
It is an efficiency model that can work well but also can jar farm lobbyists who expect that the process of dialogue and sometime disagreement is as important as achieving the goal. Ritz does not seem to hold that view.
He does not appear to exist in a highly nuanced political world.
So it will be interesting to see next week how this style fits into the nuanced, talk-is-everything world of the WTO when he goes to his first negotiation with many Canadian agricultural issues at stake.
His instinct, presumably, will be to look at an issue, voice his view on whether it is up or down and then shout “next.”
But the WTO is more subtle than that, less blunt. Canada’s contradictions will be on display, including the fact that Ritz is driven to destroy the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly but equally determined to oppose a proposal that the monopoly be ended by WTO rule. He wants it decided domestically.
His blunt single-minded style and the bundle of contradictions he will be there to defend should be an odd mix.
He says his first WTO trip will be a “trial by fire.” It’s the kind of atmosphere where mustaches get singed.
Beware the flame.
