Grain Growers of Canada, a national market-oriented voice for the grains and oilseeds industry, has hired a new Ottawa lobbyist with solid farming, industry and Liberal credentials.
Richard Phillips, 48, a Tisdale, Sask., grain farmer and pedigreed seed grower, former board member with United Grain Growers and the Canola Council of Canada and former Canadian Foodgrains Bank official with agriculture development work experience in Africa, is the new GGC Ottawa-based executive director.
He also worked as western representative in Winnipeg for former Liberal minister Bob Speller and as executive assistant to former Liberal Canadian Wheat Board minister Reg Alcock, handling the CWB file. Earlier, he was chief of staff to Saskatchewan’s opposition Liberal leader.
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But Grain Growers’ president Jim Smolik said Phillips’ Liberal connections should not be an issue in an Ottawa now run by a Conservative government.
“That really wasn’t a consideration,” he said. “He comes with much experience that will reflect itself as he works for our organization in Ottawa. In the past, he worked for others and pursued their interests, whether Liberal or otherwise. Now, he works for Grain Growers and will further our perspectives.”
Smolik noted that a former GGC executive director, Cam Dahl, came from a Reform MP office and worked with a Liberal government in office.
“I don’t think it affected his effectiveness at all.”
On one key issue, Phillips will have to change sides. While the Liberals he worked for officially supported the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly, the industry lobby he now works for wants an end to the monopoly.
Phillips said Nov. 17 his interest, wherever he worked, is to pursue “whatever can make farming better for farmers.”
And he noted that in addition to his past Liberal connections, he attended the 1993 Progressive Conservative Party leadership as a Kim Campbell delegate and considered standing as a PC candidate in the disastrous 1993 election that saw the party reduced from government to two seats.
While sitting on the UGG board of directors, Phillips also worked in Saskatchewan as a crop adjuster and was a union negotiator and eventually vice-president of the Saskatchewan Government Employees’ Union.
While with the Winnipeg-based foodgrains bank, he worked on development projects in Ethiopia and several other African countries “which gave me a perspective on what a strong agricultural system we have in Canada.”
Phillips said his various experiences in farming, agribusiness, union work, development work and politics give him a balance for the job he now takes on representing Grain Growers in Ottawa.
“Particularly in a minority Parliament, you have to be able to work with all parties and I think with my background I can,” he said. “What makes Grain Growers of Canada attractive to me is that, rather than just dealing with symptoms of the farm income problem, it is a group interested in looking at the cause of the problem and finding the solution there.”
