There was more than a hint of regret and bitterness in Eugene Whelan’s words and voice last week as he prepared to leave Parliament Hill for the last time.
On July 11, the former agriculture minister turned 75 and became a reluctant retiree from political life, forced out of the Senate by a mandatory retirement rule.
As an MP and later a senator, Whelan spent 25 years in Parliament, 11 of those as agriculture minister.
He left wishing he had a few more years to use the Senate agriculture committee as a soapbox to campaign for farmers and against the rise of international agribusiness power over the industry.
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But this lifelong Liberal partisan also left the political stage unhappy about the conservative instincts of the current breed of Liberal now ruling Canada.
Although the government is run by his old buddy Jean ChrŽtien, who appointed him to the Senate in 1996, Whelan clearly is uncomfortable with its budget-cutting, free trade-promoting agenda.
And he has few kind words for his Liberal successor as agriculture minister, Lyle Vanclief.
“No longer are we giving leadership in agriculture,” Whelan lamented in an interview. “The government is backing away from too many things, letting the provinces and industry run things.”
He is particularly incensed that the Liberals have reduced the federal leadership role and funding for agricultural research and have embraced transportation deregulation that has resulted in more prairie rail-line abandonment and higher grain freight rates.
He also believes the supply management system he championed as minister is under threat, a potential victim of the Liberal government’s willingness to pursue international trade liberalization at the expense of domestic policies.
“The Conservatives started it but I thought when the government changed (in 1993), the policies would change,” he said in his Parliament Hill office overlooking the statue of Liberal prime minister Wilfrid Laurier.
“They haven’t.”
He complained the Liberals have gutted much of the Ottawa-based Central Experimental Farm as a showcase for Canadian agriculture.
He lamented the growing role and influence of giant private companies in funding and directing Canadian food research.
“We built up one of the finest research systems in the world and I think it is being dismantled.”
Whelan also was critical of the government’s current farm aid program, considering it too complicated and offering too little help.
And he suggested Vanclief is making the government’s problems in the farm and rural community worse by being too distant and thin-skinned about his critics.
“One of his biggest problems is dealing with people,” said Whelan, who in his 11 years as minister was soaked with milk by angry Quebec dairy farmers, pushed around by Ontario tobacco farmers and booed by National Farmers Union members.
“I didn’t always have an easy time but I never refused an invitation to meet with farmers.”
