Gerry Ritz, with 14 years of parliamentary experience under his belt and a reform agenda in his gut, has been handed an almost-unprecedented opportunity to remake the agricultural policy landscape.
The Canadian Wheat Board, Canadian Grain Commission, national farm support policies, shipper relations with the railways and farmer export opportunities all could be transformed during his term.
The 59-year-old northwestern Saskatchewan MP and former farmer was re-appointed agriculture minister May 18 as prime minister Stephen Harper assembled the first Conservative majority government cabinet in almost 20 years.
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After almost four years as agriculture minister in minority Parliaments, in which many of his proposals were blocked by opposition MPs, Ritz now has more than four years to push his agenda through a Parliament where the Conservatives control the House of Commons and the Senate.
And he has a more activist agenda, policy reform opportunity and carte blanche from his government than any minister in decades.
“We’ve got a rail service review, changes to the Canadian Grain Commission and of course, we’re moving forward with changes to the (Canadian) Wheat Board so all of those have to dovetail together,” he said in a May 18 interview shortly after he was re-appointed as Canada’s 32nd agriculture minister. “None of them will stand alone but the result will be a much more strengthened farmgate. We have lots of work to do.”
While most farm leaders welcomed his return and critics bemoaned his new powers to impose what they called an “ideological agenda,” Ritz said the majority government position will give him a chance to implement policies the Conservatives have promised voters but have been blocked by an opposition parties in past minority Parliaments.
“We hit the wall whenever it came to changes in the wheat board or the grain commission,” he said. “The opposition threatened to hoist anything we brought forward. That’s no longer part of their game plan.”
In the next two years, Ritz’s agenda is expected to include:
• Eliminating the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly for wheat and barley on Aug. 1, 2012. The route to this likely will be autumn legislation to repeal the Canadian Wheat Board Act and introduction of new legislation that will not require a farmer vote for the change.
Planners believe elimination of the CWB Act will eliminate the opportunity for court challenges.
There will be howls from opposition MPs and prairie CWB supporters and demands that the Commons agriculture committee hold public hearings across the Prairies, but that likely will not happen.
A committee of Agriculture Canada officials will work this summer with other departments and the CWB and farm groups that support the change to draft legislation that will try to cover off the complications arising from the end of the CWB monopoly;
• Reforming the Canadian Grain Commission by reintroducing a version of amendments to the Canada Grain Act that were blocked by opposition MPs in 2008.
If they mirror the original bill, the amendments will end the need for “inward inspections” when grain moves from a country elevator to a terminal, reduce the amount of inspections and the number of inspectors, give a revised CGC a role in rail car logistics that the CWB now plays and remove the requirement that the CGC hold a security deposit from licensed elevators to cover farmer losses if the elevator goes bankrupt before farmers are paid.
Conservatives say it will remove unnecessary costs from the system. Critics say it will reduce farmer protection;
• Renegotiating the next generation of national farm programs that will take effect April 1, 2013, and stay in effect for five years. The federal-provincial negotiations led by Ritz will determine program design, the emphasis on farm environmental programming and other funding priorities for half a decade;
• Leading the charge to lock Canada into new trade deals that open markets for Canadian food products.
Ritz has been a relentless trade promoter and will continue to be;
• Likely being the agriculture minister who either approves a World Trade Organization deal that undermines supply management protections or who helps bury the WTO negotiating round that has been underway since 2001 and has been on life support since 2008.
