OTTAWA – Frank Claydon, the federal government’s new top agricultural bureaucrat, will preside over a department fast shrinking in size and responsibility.
He said last week he expects to oversee an era of shifting responsibilities and resources.
“It may involve some devolution,” he said in an interview June 13, his second full day as deputy minister of Agriculture Canada. “It involves more partnerships with the provinces and the private sector.”
In some cases, Ottawa will be bowing out of agricultural service areas occupied by provinces. In others, as with adaptation funds, it will be giving money to producer groups which will design programs and spend the money.
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In research, it will be giving more priority-setting power to the private sector if it puts up some of the money.
And plans are to cut staff from close to 11,000 last year to under 9,000 by 1998-99.
Still, the 49-year-old British Columbia native and career civil servant will preside over one of Ottawa’s largest and most far-flung departments.
For the past decade, he has headed the department’s policy branch. For 15 years before that, he worked at Treasury Board.
Claydon’s appointment caught many in the industry, and the department, by surprise, even though he had been acting deputy minister since former deputy Ray Protti left last month to become a banker lobbyist.
The federal government tradition is that the deputy minister comes from a different department.
“I was surprised but I’m pleased because it’s nice that people here see that you can work in a department and aspire to be the head of that department,” he said.
With such explosive issues as the debate over single-agency versus competitive grain marketing and the future of the Canadian Wheat Board, the evolution of supply management and re-organization of the department looming in the immediate future, Claydon said appointing someone familiar with the department made sense.
“Bringing someone fresh in could have perhaps delayed some of that process,” he said.
Agriculture minister Ralph Goodale, in welcoming his new deputy, noted that he was familiar with the issues.
High praise
“Mr. Claydon has enormous experience and great sensitivity to the aspirations of farmers and other stakeholders,” said Goodale. “There will be no learning curve.”
Claydon said he comes to the top departmental job without a personal agenda or personal positions on many of the hot issues, such as marketing boards.
“We have to support the position the government wants to take,” he said. “I don’t have a strong personal view of where these things are going to end up.”
