OTTAWA – Some heavy hitters in the federal government are trying to kill or delay plans by a handful of MPs to hold public hearings on the implications of losing the Crow Benefit subsidy.
Five members of the Commons agriculture committee, led by Liberal Wayne Easter, had planned to start hearings last week on the government decision.
Those early public sessions, at which senior agriculture and transport department officials were to be grilled, were cancelled.
Parliament Hill sources say there is a high-level effort, led by the finance department and some Liberal planners, to have the Crow Benefit study either sidetracked until autumn or killed altogether.
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“I think this is a case of both bureaucratic turf wars and political manoeuvring,” said a government source last week. “This is a very sensitive issue for the government.”
At play, according to officials in several MP offices, are two forces:
- An attempt by the finance department to keep control over the debate.
- An attempt by some Liberal planners to keep the public debate tightly focused, to reduce the chance for opposition to grow during a year of provincial elections in Western Canada in which the Liberals have a chance for political gains.
“I guess they are concerned that the kind of open-ended public hearings we were planning could become a forum for the critics,” said one Hill staffer. “They are not hearing much concerted opposition from the West and they are wondering why we are planning to give the critics a forum during the Manitoba election.”
For the record, last week’s meeting with senior Agriculture Canada official Howard Migie and this week’s meeting with Transport Canada deputy minister Nick Mulder were cancelled at the request of agriculture minister Ralph Goodale. The minister tracked Easter down during a visit to Brussels two weeks ago and said if there were to be hearings, he wanted to be the first witness.
If the committee does get started, Goodale’s appearance could come as early as April 6.
However, finance minister Paul Martin is trying to have the committee’s work postponed, arguing that the Crow decision, like all budget decisions, should be studied by the Commons finance committee.
It has planned several days of hearings on the subsidy issue in May, once the budget bill receives approval-in-principle in the Commons.
“I think there will be as much time set aside at the finance committee as anyone from the agriculture community needs,” Winnipeg MP David Walker, parliamentary secretary to the finance minister, said in an interview last week. “If there are two committees holding consultations on this, people in agriculture will be confused about which one they should go to.”
He said politics is not an issue: “I sense there is a fairly general consensus in the West about the method-of-payment decision.”
Defenders of the separate committee study, including Liberal MP and committee member Bernie Collins, said last week a detailed study of the implications is needed.
“This is going to have a major impact on farmers in my province and we need to air the possibilities.”
He said he is not concerned about giving a forum to the critics: “If there are concerns, that is legitimate and they should be raised.”
