Alberta farmer Ted Menzies has stepped down from his national farm leadership positions to try to win the right to run for a seat in Parliament in an expected spring federal election.
The Claresholm grains and special crops producer announced Jan. 12 he is seeking the Conservative Party of Canada nomination in Macleod constituency, south of Calgary.
He has resigned as president of the Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance, or CAFTA, and as a member of the federal government’s agricultural trade advisory committee, citing the need to maintain the credibility of those groups.
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“I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to be lobbying or advising government when my partisan political intentions are known,” he said in an interview from his farm Jan. 11.
“It’s a credibility issue, whether perceived or real. I know in politics there often is no difference.”
Menzies is a former president of the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association, former vice-president and founding force in Grain Growers of Canada and was a trade liberalization lobbyist at several World Trade Organization meetings.
He said it is time to move from the outside of the policy-making business to the inside.
“We do have an audience through CAFTA and grain growers,” said Menzies. “But I still feel more can be done by being inside the process.”
In his run for a nomination as a candidate for the new political party, he will be promoting his successes as a farm leader and lobbyist. But the interests of the Alberta riding range from farming to the oil sector, from tourism to urban sprawl and the interests of the thousands who live in the riding but work in Calgary.
“This is a diverse riding and I’m excited at the possibility to expand my work to issues beyond agriculture,” he said.
The Macleod riding has an unbroken 70-year history of electing conservative MPs – Social Credit, Progressive Conservative, Reform and Alliance. Grant Hill, acting official opposition leader in the House of Commons for the Conservative party and Macleod MP since 1993, is retiring.
Menzies becomes one of a growing number of farm leaders or former farm leaders trying to get to Parliament in 2004.
Canadian Federation of Agriculture president Bob Friesen is running for the Liberal nomination in the Brandon-Souris riding of southwestern Manitoba, while former Keystone Agricultural Producers president Don Dewar is after the Liberal nomination in Dauphin-Swan River in Manitoba.
Menzies has been an active Progressive Conservative in federal and Alberta politics.
In Ottawa, CAFTA said it soon will elect a new president but until then, vice-president Neil Jahnke from the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association and past-president Liam McCreery from Ontario will lead the alliance, which represents both farm groups and agribusiness firms in a lobby for freer trade.
“Ted has made a very significant contribution to CAFTA over the past year and a half,” said Jahnke. “It was with regret that we accepted his resignation, but we wish him well in his new endeavour and are looking forward to working with him when he becomes a member of Parliament.”
