André Bellavance is a political survivor and the politician responsible for the most important plank in current Canadian agricultural trade policy.
He is one of just four Bloc Quebecois MPs who survived the May 2 onslaught of the New Democratic Party in Quebec.
He squeezed out a 700 vote victory after winning by almost 9,000 votes in 2008.
But even had he lost, Bellavance had already made his political mark.
It was autumn 2005, and a crucial meeting of World Trade Organization ministers was scheduled in December for Hong Kong.
Read Also
Canola oil transloading facility opens
DP World just opened its new canola oil transload facility at the Port of Vancouver. It can ship one million tonnes of the commodity per year.
The BQ’s newly appointed agriculture critic proposed a motion that Canada refuse to sign any WTO deal that eroded supply management protections.
On Nov. 22, after much behind the scenes manoeuvring and negotiation on Parliament Hill and despite opposition from the Liberal trade and agriculture ministers, the motion was approved unanimously by MPs.
It has bound federal governments ever since as WTO negotiators from all other countries support reductions in sensitive product protections.
It has been the clarion call of Canada’s dairy, poultry and egg producers when they talk to government about
trade negotiations and the bane of export-oriented agricultural sectors and trade economists who see the resolution as undermining Canada’s trade negotiation credibility.
Bellavance, a proud and enthusiastic proponent of Quebec independence, considers the Nov. 22 vote his crowning political achievement in federal politics.
“For sure, that is the main accomplishment I have had,” he said.
“I can say that I helped many people in Quebec and across Canada and when farmers from across Canada are here and meet me, they shake my hand and thank me. It feels good.”
Bellavance said the unprecedented unanimous vote to tie trade negotiators’ hands on a key agricultural file was the result of negotiations between senior BQ leaders and other parties and a Liberal fear of losing Quebec and Ontario seats in the pending election.
“The Liberals were not happy, but they knew we would use this in Quebec and it would have been used against them in Ontario and elsewhere and an election was coming,” he said. “That’s politics.”
In fact, the minority Liberal government fell within days and Conservative leader Stephen Harper won his first minority government in January.
If that vote was his crowning achievement in federal politics, his 2011 re-election to a fourth term in Richmond-Arthabaska, a riding once represented by former prime minister Wilfrid Laurier, must be considered a close second.
The BQ lost more than 40 MPs, including leader Gilles Duceppe, and lost official party status in the Commons after 18 years of being the dominant Quebec voice in Parliament.
Bellavance, a former radio journalist who became a political aide and then MP, squeaked out a win as the New Democratic Party rode a wave of voter affection for leader Jack Layton to take 59 of 75 Quebec seats.
He said he didn’t see the NDP surge coming.
He considered his main opponent to be the Conservative while the NDP candidate lived in Montreal, far from the riding, did not appear at candidate meetings and spent part of the campaign in Paris. In 2008, the NDP candidate came a poor fourth.
This time, the NDP came close to beating him.
“I didn’t see it coming,” he said. “It was incredible. At the beginning of the campaign we were way ahead. Then things changed. I’ve never seen anything like it and I still can’t explain it.”
The result is that he is one of four BQ members of Parliament without official party status and without the right to have regular questions in the Commons or a seat on committees.
Bellavance, the former vice-chair of the agriculture committee, plans to attend committee meetings as a phantom MP with the right to sit there but not to ask questions.
He hopes sometimes he gets the chance if the committee agrees.
“That is the worst part, not being able to take part in committee,” he said. “I think I was a good agriculture representative and committee member, but I don’t have that right anymore.
“Because I know the members, I still think agriculture committee is my best chance to speak.”
