Eugene Whelan isn’t betting the farm on getting his wish, but he has made a suggestion to prime minister Jean ChrŽtien about how he can stay involved in federal politics.
“I’ve told ChrŽtien I’d like to be a $1-a-year man, advising on international trade,” the former long-time agriculture minister said in a July 7 interview. “Jean hasn’t said anything about it yet.”
One of Whelan’s prized possessions is an autographed photo of himself with ChrŽtien and Whelan’s daughter Susan, now a second-term Liberal MP representing her dad’s old riding. The photograph is signed “To Geno, best wishes” from his old caucus friend whom Whelan insists he taught to speak English.
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But old friendships don’t always count, especially since ChrŽtien already paid it back with the Senate appointment.
Besides, Whelan doesn’t have the farm to bet anymore. In 1997, he sold the last 120 acres (minus the home lot) for housing in suburban Windsor.
So last weekend, Whelan left Parliament Hill for perhaps the last time. He moved back to his home just outside Windsor, Ont.
On July 11, he turned 75 and had to retire from the Senate after three years. From 1962 to 1984, he was a Liberal MP, 11 of those as agriculture minister.
“I’ve enjoyed the Senate and would like to stay,” the old political warrior conceded. “I was able to pursue some things here, keep people accountable.”
Whelan says he will stay active in politics, even if he does not get the trade adviser job.
He has a weekly radio show broadcast into many Ontario markets. He maintains his Liberal contacts, even if he is out of sync with many of the conservative, free trade and deregulation policies of the present Liberal government.
And he has a daughter in the Liberal caucus.
“I will stay in politics, very much so,” said Whelan, who fought hard in caucus to secure farm support programs, supply management and agricultural research. “When I see what they are doing, selling off our airports and cutting scientists and backing away from leading, someone has to let them know.”
Despite his long ties with ChrŽtien, Whelan does not talk much about his old friend’s government.
Instead, he sprinkles an interview with complimentary references to Pierre Trudeau, the prime minister under whom he served.
He said Trudeau confessed one time he found agriculture too complicated to really understand. “He told me: ‘I don’t know how you do what you do, but just keep doing it’, ” said Whelan.
He also said Trudeau offered him his choice of five other portfolios, including national defence, public works and fisheries. “I said I wanted to stay where I was.”
Trudeau told him five other government members were interested in talking his agriculture portfolio. “Five, I said. I can’t think of one who knows a pig from a cow. Trudeau laughed.”
Whelan said his most proud accomplishment was building up Agriculture Canada’s research division. “I always believed in research as the most important part of the policy.”
As he tells it, the low point in his political career was not the 1976 day he was doused with milk by angry Quebec dairy farmers looking for higher prices, nor the 1984 day he was dropped from cabinet by prime minister and leadership rival John Turner, nor even the day later that same year he was fired as ambassador to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization by the new Conservative government before he could ever get to Rome.
Whelan said his low point was in the early 1980s when he stayed in cabinet even though interest rates, including Farm Credit Corporation rates, were well into the double digits.
Those inflationary rates were the cause of many farm failures in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
“I should have quit cabinet,” he said. “I disagreed with the finance department policy. I should have quit.”
