TORONTO – Solicitor general and former farm leader Wayne Easter has some pointed advice for the new Paul Martin Liberal government that will be sworn in Dec. 12.
Martin should make sure that sen-ior bureaucrats in natural resource departments like agriculture and fisheries actually understand the economic sector they oversee.
“Those portfolios need more than just management,” Easter said in an interview during the recent Liberal leadership convention that selected Martin as the 10th Liberal leader and the next prime minister. “They need understanding.”
Easter, a former National Farmers Union president and a Prince Edward Island Liberal MP for a decade, has been a persistent critic of the senior management of Agriculture Canada, particularly deputy minister Samy Watson.
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He once demanded in Parliament that all of Watson’s agricultural credentials be documented.
Easter said in mid-November that while the Liberal government has “pumped a fair bit of money” into agriculture in the past seven years, the programs often have been unpopular with farmers and the spending unappreciated.
He said poor communication by the government was part of the problem.
The insensitivity of the bureaucrats designing the resulting programs also was part of the mix, he said.
“We need to find a way to have these deputies connect with the industry,” said Easter, once a dairy farmer and now owner of a P.E.I. cattle farm. “Nothing bothers me more as a farmer than being called a client of Agriculture Canada. Those people at Agriculture Canada work for me. Don’t call me a client.”
He said the new Martin government must look at the role of the senior bureaucrats in agriculture.
“I’ve said it to the bureaucrats myself that to a certain extent Ottawa at the bureaucratic policy level is a bubble within which reality does not always exist,” he said. “There’s a disconnect.”
Top agriculture and fisheries bureaucrats once were qualified be-cause of years spent in the system. Now, deputy ministers often are shuffled as managers, without any real feel for their constituency.
Easter may not be a cabinet minister for long. With just one cabinet representative from P.E.I., Martin is expected on Dec. 12 to name a closer island ally.
And Easter’s comments about the “disconnect” between the bureaucracy and the public and the need for ministers to assert their control over their bureaucrats are ironic. As solicitor general he has been mocked by opposition MPs for his allegiance to the RCMP and Canada’s spy agency in their rejection of demands for an inquiry into Canadian citizens being jailed and tortured in foreign countries.
But Easter’s questioning of Agriculture Canada’s senior bureaucrats also reflects a broader stream in the Liberal party.
During the recent Saskatchewan election campaign, provincial Liberal leader David Karwacki said a change in deputy minister is key to a better federal agriculture policy.
After a Saskatoon debate on agriculture, he told reporters that Watson is out to rationalize farms in Saskatchewan and is not supportive of the grains and oilseeds industry.
“If that does not change in the next federal administration, we are in for a long decade in Saskatchewan,” Karwacki warned.
