Four months ago the Saskatchewan Rally Group didn’t exist.
This week it is opening a lobby office in the nation’s capital.
It will be a temporary office staffed by volunteers and run out of a bed and breakfast. But it will have all the necessities including computers, a fax machine – even attached accommodations capable of sleeping up to five people.
The group plans to run the office for only two months, taking them through both the provincial and the federal budgets.
“I’ve been in Ottawa enough to know that carrying on a lobby effort there is not going to be easy,” said Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities president Sinclair Harrison. SARM has mulled over the idea of an Ottawa office since it was first raised at the group’s November 1998 convention.
Read Also
Agriculture ministers agree to AgriStability changes
federal government proposed several months ago to increase the compensation rate from 80 to 90 per cent and double the maximum payment from $3 million to $6 million
Harrison doesn’t believe a new voice from Saskatchewan is going to immediately set Parliament Hill on its ear.
“It’s going to take a while until you’re accepted into the big scheme of things. You don’t just show up one day and say, ‘Here I am, please come and visit me,’ ” said Harrison.
Liberal MP John Harvard said an effective lobby effort requires a strong, consistent presence on Parliament Hill.
“It’s long. Things just don’t happen overnight,” said Harvard, who chairs the House of Commons agriculture committee.
“You have to know which door to open, you have to be somewhat familiar with the jargon and you have to be familiar with what pressures (the politicians and bureaucrats) are under.”
Lobbyists have to realize that people on the other side of the issue are often whispering in the politician’s other ear.
“It’s not an easy task. It’s a huge exercise in human relations,” said Harvard.
He said one thing groups mounting a lobby effort should keep in mind is that shouting is not a tool of the Ottawa lobbyist.
“Around the Hill it’s anything but confrontational.”
Reform MP Howard Hilstrom agrees that a proper lobby effort is a big task. Getting an appointment with a minister or a senior bureaucrat can be a long process, but if a group does get an appointment, the lobbyist should come with workable solutions rather than demands.
“I think they should probably be very focused and have some good number research behind them.”
Sask Rally Group vice-president Bob Thomas said lobbying from Ottawa will be more effective than lobbying from two provinces away.
“Trying to do things from Saskatchewan, whether it’s by fax or e-mail or by phone, doesn’t work. You don’t get that direct one on one.”
He said the office will also be used as an eastern media outlet to educate people in cities like Toronto and Montreal about the plight of prairie farmers.
He estimates the total bill for the Ottawa office will be $7,000 a month, excluding flights back and forth to Saskatchewan for the four or five volunteers who will staff the office. The money is coming from 1,000 members who each paid a $25 membership fee.
It’s a far cry from the $250,000 SARM estimates an Ottawa lobby office would cost its members on an annual basis. And Harrison has been told by some Ottawa insiders that $250,000 is a “ridiculously cheap” estimate.
SARM has approached all 297 RMs about contributing to an Ottawa lobby office on a voluntary basis. Harrison said he should know by Feb. 15 what kind of commitment the idea generated. Then he will go back to the membership for direction.
“I don’t expect the office to be set up before the convention in March,” said Harrison.
