Ontario farmer John Wise, federal agriculture minister for almost five years ending a quarter century ago, is being posthumously inducted into the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame.
Wise, briefly minister in 1979-80 in the government of prime minister Joe Clark and then for four years (1984-88) under prime minister Brian Mulroney, died in January at age 77.
He becomes only the seventh of 32 agriculture ministers since Confederation to be named to the Hall of Fame, created in 1960 to honour agricultural pioneers, inventors, leaders and advocates.
When he is inducted into the hall of fame in November, he will join ministers William Motherwell, Jimmy Gardiner, Harry Hays, Charlie Mayer, Eugene Whelan and Lyle Vanclief, who have been inducted as significant agricultural leaders.
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More than 200 people have been named members of the hall of fame over more than half a century.
Joining Wise this year as new members will be dairy cattle genetics innovator and promoter Lowell Lindsay from Guelph, Ont., agribusiness executive John Oliver from Oshawa, Ont. and Canadian wine industry pioneer Donald Ziraldo from Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont.
The CAHF announcement of the 2013 inductees cited Wise’s long history as a municipal politician that culminated in his years as an MP and federal agriculture minister and included support for the federal research station network and supply management.
He was a fifth generation dairy farmer from the St. Thomas area of southwestern Ontario.
Wise was elected to the House of Commons five times and served as an MP for 16 years before resigning in 1988 before the “free trade” election.
Although there was speculation that he quit because of a concern about the impact of the impending Canada-U.S. free trade agreement on supply management, Wise never confirmed that or indicated publicly any disagreement with the Mulroney government’s pursuit of free trade.
