LAST week’s House of Commons agriculture committee hearings on rumoured Conservative cuts to Canadian Food Inspection Agency spending and inspection were entertaining at one level.
Among heated accusations of being political and partisan (omigod, not partisan in Parliament) were such not-to-be-missed comparisons of agriculture minister Gerry Ritz to a pig in a pen and wide-eyed Ottawa New Democrat Paul Dewar described as a sort of k.d. lang, Alberta country diva and aggressive vegetarian, presumably in drag.
But at its core was another abject failure in Conservative government communication.
Read Also
Agriculture needs to prepare for government spending cuts
As government makes necessary cuts to spending, what can be reduced or restructured in the budgets for agriculture?
The heart of the issue was that during the slow news days of summer, a public service union received great mileage when a CFIA scientist and union shop steward found and forwarded to his union a restricted cabinet document. It discussed proposals for CFIA to cut five percent of its budget by getting rid of unnecessary programs, shifting hands-on inspection duties to industry and reducing funding in some non-essential BSE and avian influenza programming.
For his indiscretion, the 20-year CFIA veteran was fired. It is under appeal.
Since they had a much better story to tell about proposals not implemented, new inspectors hired and millions added to the CFIA budget, the Conservatives did what any communications-challenged crowd would do. They went defensive, angry and therefore suspicious-looking. They refused to release the much-leaked memo, accused their critics of nefarious sins and looked to be in complete cover-up mode.
Critics fed on it, leaving the impression that Conservatives were jeopardizing food safety in a week when deaths were confirmed related to a tainted-meat problem.
Critics knew that CFIA has never inspected all food and has always been an overseer of industry practices, that CFIA has received more money and hired more staff and that previous governments also reduced hands-on CFIA inspections to concentrate on higher-risk points in the system.
No matter. The Conservatives, by being defensive and secretive, gave them a gold mine to exploit.
At committee last week, Brant, Ont., Liberal Lloyd St. Armand made the perfect point. Why were the Conservatives being so coy and paranoid if they had a good story to tell? Release the discussion document and then provide the context.
“Why would the government last December not have said, this guy’s allegations are off the wall. Here’s the report, Canadians, judge for yourselves, we are not, definitely not, reducing funding for this agency,” he wondered.
It was an excellent question never answered by the Conservatives.
Meanwhile, Ritz was the lead government presence on the file and he generally handled himself well in his most visible role yet to Canadians outside agriculture.
But he had one folksy moment that must have made communications advisors cringe.
As reporters pressed him on whether cuts proposed in the memo still could happen in the context of the Maple Leaf Foods recall, he refused to rule it out as long as CFIA looked for better ways to do what it does.
“So you know, we’re trying to build a better mousetrap here.”
WHAT? THERE ARE MICE IN THE MAPLE LEAF PLANT AS WELL? THIS IS WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT!
