Defeated Liberal agriculture minister Andy Mitchell looks back on his collaboration with farm leaders as a key highlight of his 19 months in
office.
“During my tenure we worked hard to meet the needs of producers and to meet the challenges,” Mitchell said.
On Feb. 3, a judicial recount confirmed that Mitchell lost his Parry Sound-Muskoka riding in cottage country north of Toronto by the slimmest of margins – 28 votes out of more than 46,000 cast.
Former Ontario Conservative health minister Tony Clement replaces him as MP.
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Mitchell, a former rural bank manager, becomes the second consecutive Liberal agriculture minister to be defeated shortly after taking the job.
But although his tenure was one of the shortest in Canadian history, Mitchell presided over a time of record government payments to farmers, record farm income and trade crises and bold proposals to change national agricultural policy.
Mitchell inherited a flawed Canadian Agricultural Income Stabilization program and set in motion a committee to design a better program.
He accepted a recommendation from MP Wayne Easter that the answer to declining farm incomes was not bigger, more efficient farms but a lack of farmer market power and corporate concentration of farm goods buyers and input suppliers.
Mitchell launched a review of the department’s science policy and practices that could produce changes in how research is organized, funded and conducted. The new government will receive the recommendations from that review early in its mandate.
He was asked if the Conservatives will be able to discard the existing CAIS for a better replacement, as promised during the campaign.
“Of course, working on the issue of business risk management was a work in progress and I think it will remain a work in progress,” said Mitchell. “The realities our producers face have evolved over time. The ability of the government to be able to deal with them in a responsive way to address the challenges will be important.”
