OTTAWA – What started as a routine housekeeping attempt by the government to change the name of the department of agriculture last week became something of a Liberal embarrassment.
In the end, the legislation was approved and the department is now Agriculture and Agri-food Canada.
Along the way, however, the majority of Liberals were forced to rise in the House of Commons to vote against a proposal by one of their own caucus colleagues.
Wayne Easter (Malpeque) proposed that departmental financial reports now tabled in the Commons by the Treasury Board be designated as an Agriculture and Agri-food Canada annual report, making the department directly accountable.
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Reform and Bloc QuŽbecois MPs supported him, as did a handful of Liberals.
Counsel voters
In fact, the vote was close enough that Easter said later he had counselled some Liberals to vote against it or to sit out the vote so the government would not lose.
The final count was 133-103.
At issue was Easter’s complaint that once the department quit tabling an annual report several years ago, it ceased to be directly accountable to Parliament.
Lyle Vanclief, parliamentary secretary to the agriculture minister, insisted that is not the case. Parliament approves money for the department and that makes it accountable.
Lead to duplication
To designate the report on spending estimates as an annual report would be costly and lead to duplication of effort, he said.
Easter insisted that was not so. He was asking only for an official designation for a document already produced.
It was accountability, not a different report, that was at stake.
So it went, a somewhat obscure debate that took on greater significance when supporters of the amendment made it an accountability issue.
Reform House Leader Elwin Hermanson characterized Vanclief’s position as “a rather lengthy argument against the need for more accountability.”
It was not what the Liberals expected from a routine, housekeeping amendment.
