In the next three weeks, Montreal Conservative senator Michael Fortier likely will have more farmers trying to bend his ear than at any time in his short political career or the banking and legal careers he pursued before politics.
Last week, the 46-year-old was appointed minister for international trade, landing him in the trade policy hot seat four weeks before a crucial World Trade Organization ministerial meeting in Geneva.
Farm leaders are lining up to meet him and to press their trade point of view before the July 21 meeting begins.
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“We will be looking to the leadership of the new trade minister in helping advance these negotiations toward a successful conclusion,” Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance president Darcy Davis said in a statement issued after Fortier was moved to trade from the public works portfolio.
Davis said June 30 CAFTA has requested a meeting with the minister in Ottawa before he flies to Geneva.
He said having a new minister in the midst of a WTO pressure-cooker meeting raises “a bit of a concern” but with his background “I expect he’ll be able to get up to speed quickly.”
Dairy Farmers of Canada president Jacques Laforge said he knew little about Fortier and DFC also has requested a meeting.
“I don’t know the guy at all,” he said. “Sometimes a new guy can surprise the hell out of you by having a new perspective based on his experience.”
Davis said he understood Fortier has a background as a trade lawyer, which he said “will be good background for him.”
His official Senate biography does not mention it.
“As a partner at Ogilvy Renault (Montreal law firm), he specialized in securities, mergers and acquisitions,” it says. “From 1992 to 1996, he managed Ogilvy Renault’s office in London, England. In 1999, he became the managing director and senior adviser (Eastern Canada) at Crédit Suisse First Boston (and) in 2004, Mr. Fortier became corporate financing director (Quebec) for TD Securities.”
Fortier’s 2006 appointment to the Senate and then to cabinet created a political uproar because it was done by prime minister Stephen Harper, who had campaigned against an appointed Senate.
However, voters did not give Harper’s minority government a Montreal MP to represent the city in cabinet. Fortier has promised to run for the House of Commons in the next election.
He is expected to be joined in Geneva by agriculture minister Gerry Ritz who will lead Canada’s involvement in the agricultural negotiations.
On June 30, Ritz’s office issued his comments on the WTO ministerial meeting that affirmed Canada’s hope for a successful conclusion of the WTO negotiation.
