In government terms, Agriculture Canada’s rural secretariat is small and relatively new – just three years old.
But last week, a senior departmental official went before MPs to insist that the unit is having an effect in making the entire federal government aware of the need to be sensitive to rural effects of policy.
Associate deputy agriculture minister Michelle Comeau said the rural secretariat has intervened within government on policy issues ranging from proposed bank mergers to a plan to reduce the number of customs agents at small rural Canada-U.S. border points.
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“It doesn’t mean it changes decisions in every case,” Comeau told MPs on the House of Commons agriculture committee. “But our track record is getting better.”
She noted that when finance minister Paul Martin killed proposed bank mergers last autumn, he cited concerns about rural service as one of the reasons.
Comeau said when the rural secretariat caught wind of the proposed mergers, it contacted finance officials to urge them to consider rural implications as well.
The secretariat has a staff of 26 and a budget of several million dollars. It administers the $20 million, four-year federal fund for pilot projects on rural services.
It organized and ran the “Rural Dialogue” last year and sometime this spring will produce a report on what rural Canadians expect from their government.
Comeau had to fend off opposition MP complaints that the secretariat merely duplicates what other departments do or should do.
She said it is more a “co-ordinator” between departments and plays the role of advocating for rural issues inside government.
In 1997, agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief said in the future, all government policies will be viewed through a “rural lens” before being announced or implemented. It is the secretariat’s job to make sure that happens.
But through the haze of bureaucratic words about facilitating and co-ordinating, committee chair and Winnipeg MP John Harvard wondered what they actually did. What sort of rural insensitivity existed before the creation of the secretariat that now would be avoided?
Comeau cited the 1995 budget, which hit rural Canada harder than expected because subsidy cuts announced by a number of different departments had a sharp cumulative impact on rural Canada.
Agriculture and transportation subsidies were cut, cost recovery fees were raised and other services and supports were slashed. “Rural citizens told us that rural Canada took a hit from the 1995 budget,” she said.
If such policies and cuts were to be planned now, rural secretariat staff would try to assess that cumulative impact beforehand and warn the government it should take the broader impact into account.
Comeau also told Ontario Liberal Ian Murray that if an MP had a worthy rural policy proposal, the secretariat would be its advocate within government.
“Yes, definitely,” she said. “That is one of our roles.”
