MONTREAL — It was vintage Gerry Ritz who took to the podium to collect an honorary lifetime member award from the Canola Council of Canada at its recent convention.
“You guys embraced the changes. You embraced the challenges. We did it together,” said Ritz in a pithy and focused speech lasting less than three minutes on March 7.
He praised the canola industry, which has greatly expanded in recent years, for exemplifying a private-sector approach that looks to government to remove obstacles, rather than control the industry.
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“The mantra (within the Conservative government in which he was agriculture minister for eight years), and everybody got tired of hearing it, was marketplace not mailbox. If you’re waiting for a cheque from the government, you’re already done. It’s time to start looking at what you can do and how you build that solid foundation moving forward.
“The canola council is one of those operations that have embraced that opportunity.”
Ritz displayed the combination of friendliness and antagonism, humour and seriousness that Canadian farmers got used to during his long tenure.
“The intransigence of the (Canadian) Wheat Board through those years gave rise to a strong canola marketing concept, and pulse and other crops, that you didn’t need a permit book to market,” said Ritz, recalling the signal achievement and divisive struggle of his time as minister: the ending of the CWB’s monopoly powers.
“I still get hate mail for doing that, but stats prove that we were right. The sky came blue the next day. The sun is still shining.”
Ritz said his government’s approach to policy and program development was “results-driven” and focused on giving farmers and industry what they needed to grow.
“How do we drive that? How do we put a budget to it?” said Ritz.
He remains broadly popular in the canola industry, which traditionally drew the efforts of farmers and companies that chafed against the government controls inherent in the CWB system. While central control and regulations were at the core of wheat marketing, the canola industry developed a “value chain” system of voluntary co-ordination that connected farmers to grain companies to breeders to marketers to chemical and seed companies.
A few people at the Canadian Crops Convention raised an eyebrow at Ritz receiving the award, privately commenting that they saw him as having been at least as damaging and divisive as constructive and supportive.
But most were happy to see Ritz recognized for his historic role in transforming and, many felt, radically improving the situation of prairie farmers and the canola industry.
Outgoing CCC chair David Dzisiak described Ritz as “one outstanding individual, one that has gone above and beyond duty in supporting Canadian canola….
“He was a real force for change in helping to restructure agriculture in Canada.”
