Call it the call of the cows.
Canadian Alliance MP and agriculture critic Howard Hilstrom has decided to leave politics next year to concentrate on his cow-calf operation in Manitoba’s Interlake district.
He will not run in the next election, expected in 2004, and soon will be replaced as the chief Alliance agriculture critic. He will remain an MP until the election is called
He is leaving the rhetorical b.s. of Parliament Hill politics for the real thing back on the farm near Inwood, Man.
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“I had to make a choice between business and politics because both of them are full-time jobs,” he said May 15. “There was never a doubt that if I had to make a choice, it would be ranching.”
An early clue of the impending decision was that when he returned to Parliament Hill after the Easter break, Hilstrom was enthusing about calving season rather than Liberal weaknesses and the political issues he’d heard about in the riding.
Hilstrom has been chief opposition agriculture critic since 1998, leading the Alliance fight for better drought aid, improved safety nets, an end to the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly and freer trade.
He will be leaving a job that pays more than $130,000 a year for a business that he says “takes a lot of inputs and investment for not much profit.”
He will have his MP pension, but the MP said none of the decisions are about money.
“I didn’t get into politics for the money and I’m certainly not going back to the cattle business for money,” he said.
Hilstrom, 56, retired from the RCMP in 1997 and planned to devote his time to the ranch he and his wife, Faye, had been building since 1983.
It was an election year and although he had never belonged to a political party, he was approached by the Reform Party to run in Selkirk-Interlake to take on the incumbent Liberal. He found the party’s conservative anti-deficit and anti-government policies to his liking and accepted the challenge.
Hilstrom squeaked out a victory in one of the tightest three-way races in the country. In 2000, he was easily re-elected as Liberal strength on the Prairies faded.
All the while, he was building up the ranch, buying two adjoining operations to expand the land base to almost 7,000 acres and expanding the breeding herd from 75 in 1997 to 300 now.
He has plans to expand to 400 breeding heifers as his daughter and son-in-law, Heather and Jake Doerksen, join the business.
“The cattle business is changing, like all business, and we have decided that there is a size we need to get to be viable,” Hilstrom said. “That’s between 300 and 400 head and that’s where we’re heading.”
His operation also includes a finishing feedlot.
“It’s where we add some value to the calves.”
The family has decided to stay out of the grain and cash crop business to concentrate on cattle and feed. Much of the land is seeded to alfalfa.
But Hilstrom is not leaving Parliament Hill as a bitter former politician.
“Politics is an incredibly important job,” he said. “The voters deserve someone who can do it full-time. Since 1983, I’ve worked two jobs. I’m going back to what I want to do full time.”
He said that by announcing now, he gives his riding executive time to find a new candidate for the expected 2004 election.
