Hanging from a desk lamp in David Anderson’s Parliament Hill office is a set of toy handcuffs, a souvenir of the day more than three years ago when anti-Canadian Wheat Board farmers opted to go to jail rather than pay fines related to border running.
The farmers engaged in a bit of guerilla theatre by wearing the toy handcuffs when they showed up to turn themselves in.
As the Canadian Alliance wheat board critic at the time, Anderson was there to support the farmers’ attempt to bypass the CWB export monopoly. One of the farmers gave him his handcuffs.
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Anderson, the 48-year-old southern Saskatchewan farmer and three-time MP who was recently appointed parliamentary secretary to agriculture minister Chuck Strahl, sees the handcuffs as a daily reminder of his belief in economic freedom.
“I really see the issue of the board monopoly as an issue of freedom,” he said. “Really, since I started farming I have believed that farmers as businesspeople have the right to make their own business decisions, including marketing.”
So a Feb. 4 telephone call from Stephen Harper asking him to serve as Strahl’s assistant with special responsibilities for working on implementation of the Conservative election promise to end the monopoly was the fulfillment of a dream.
“I didn’t have to think too long about it,” he said with a smile.
Since then, Strahl has signalled that wheat board changes will not come quickly, not focus simply on the monopoly marketing issue and happen only after extensive consultations. But despite the signal of caution from the new government, Anderson said he still believes the issue can be dealt with during the life of this minority government.
“I see no reason why this cannot be accomplished,” he said. “It has been part of our platform, farmers understood what we were promising and we won rural seats across the West.”
However, the Parliament that Canadians elected Jan. 23 will make CWB change difficult for the Conservatives to accomplish. They hold a weak minority government and the opposition parties likely would oppose any move to end the monopoly.
Still, Anderson said it is an issue the Conservatives have an obligation to pursue, although Strahl will decide the pace and shape of that pursuit.
Meanwhile, the Saskatchewan MP insists his goal is not to destroy the wheat board as his critics insist. He said that farmers who want to use it as a marketing agent could continue to do so on a voluntary basis.
“I just feel people should be free to make their own business decisions but I don’t believe that means the board would be destroyed,” he said.
“It will depend on farmer support. People in some ways overestimate my opposition to the CWB. I was appointed critic for the CWB and I did my job as well as I could. I will continue to criticize the board and to insist they be held to account but that doesn’t mean I want to see it destroyed.”
Anderson came to organized politics relatively late in life after farming for more than 20 years. He had farmed ever since earning a political science degree from the University of Regina, even during a period when at age 30, he returned to school in Regina to earn a masters degree in divinity from the Canadian Theological Seminary.
In 2000, Canadian Alliance activists in the Cypress Hills-Grasslands riding of southwestern Saskatchewan asked the 43-year-old farmer to run for the nomination to contest the upcoming election. Former MP Lee Morrison was retiring.
The real election race in the deeply conservative riding was the seven-person nomination fight and although he had not been a party activist and knew almost nothing about political organization, Anderson won on the first ballot. He went on to win the riding with more than 61 percent of the vote.
“I had been interested in politics from when I was a teenager but I really knew nothing about how it worked,” he said. “I was so na•ve I thought it would be a part-time job and I could continue farming.”
He quickly learned otherwise and now his brother-in-law farms the four-section operation.
“I try to help out a bit in seeding and harvest but being an MP is more than a full-time job and now with the new responsibilities, it has just got busier.”
Anderson said that in addition to work on wheat board issues, Strahl has asked him to act as a liaison between the minister and the large contingent of Conservative MPs with agricultural interests.
And he said the parliamentary secretary position will give him a chance to speak for a group of farmers not often heard by government.
“Organized farm groups have access to the minister’s office but lots of farmers are not in farm groups and don’t feel particularly well represented,” said Anderson.
“I want to make sure those producers also have a voice.”
