Reporters are far better at predicting the past than the future, but since the first year of the new millennium has just begun, perhaps my predictive powers will improve.
Here are a few political predictions for the year 2001 and beyond:
— Sometime before spring seeding, the federal government will announce a significant new investment in farm safety nets, probably including some money for NISA enhancements, companion program spending and on-farm environmental investment.
What is not clear yet is whether provinces will contribute their 40 percent, and who will announce it … agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief or a replacement minister. Ottawa rumors persistently suggest Regina’s Ralph Goodale might get his old job back, when prime minister Jean Chrétien finally gets around to a cabinet shuffle.
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— Not long after the Canadian government announces its additional funding, the new Republican administration in the United States will up the ante with another large dollop of farm aid promises, quickly delivered.
Canadian farm lobbyists immediately will note that the gap between American and Canadian farm support levels has not narrowed and the call will go out for more Canadian government action.
— Despite abundant evidence that a huge chasm still exists between the European Union and the United States on trade policy issues, ministers will try to launch a new World Trade Organization negotiating round when they meet late this year. The argument for a new negotiating round will be that growing subsidies and trade frictions require attention, and a lack of effort to launch a new round will mean a loss of trade liberalizing momentum.
— Despite the trade views of president George W. Bush, a sharply divided Con-gress will be reluctant to give him power to engage in new global trade talks. It will be one of Bush’s first major political tests.
— Prime minister Chrétien will keep his party, and potential leadership candidates, guessing about his retirement intentions, at least until early 2003.
— The Canadian Alliance will find some way to water down or kill its citizen-initiated referendum proposal, perhaps by setting an extremely high voter trigger or by making it clear that a CA government would not be bound by the results. Otherwise, it will continue to face questions about how it could guarantee any policy position, if a relatively small number of voters could insist that the government abandon its promises.
— Progressive Conservative leader Joe Clark eventually will concede he did not win the last election, despite his oft-repeated assertion he won the campaign. He will lay the groundwork to quit the leadershi-10-P. However, there will be some nervous-nellies in the party because of the prospect that Prince Albert renegade Tory David Orchard could turn any one member-one vote race into a tight one, using his anti-free trade network to bolster voting lists. Orchard came second to Clark in 1998 and could well capture the leadership of Brian Mulroney’s party on a platform of renouncing much of Mulroney’s (and Clark’s) legacy.
— New Democrats and leader Alexa McDonough will … hmmm, who knows?
