Ag issues fester while Shawinigate meanders on - Opinion

SASKATCHEWAN farmer Vance Simpson didn’t have much time to make his point so he got to it quickly.

Last week’s occupant of the Saskatchewan Rally Group’s so-called “farmers’ embassy” in Ottawa was given five minutes to talk to Canadian Alliance leader Stockwell Day.

He asked that the opposition in Parliament set aside its recent obsession with prime minister Jean Chrétien’s relationship with a golf course in Shawinigan, Que., and start to pressure the government on its decision to limit spring farm aid to $500 million.

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“I stressed that while Shawinigan might be important, they can come back to it,” he said. “The farm income issue needs attention now.”

Simpson had a point. Since before the last election, the issue of whether Chrétien held an interest in a golf course while he lobbied for federal loans to a neighboring hotel has obsessed federal opposition MPs and the media.

Was the 1993 sale of the golf club shares real? Did ownership revert to Chrétien when the deal soured in 1996?

The nation hangs in the balance, if the political rhetoric can be believed.

Will the prime minister call an independent inquiry? No? Then will the prime minister resign?

Yawn.

While the House of Commons question period has been dominated for weeks by allegations about the minutia of sales agreements, numbered companies, prime ministerial friendships and a deal in which Chrétien actually lost money, the real world has been evolving.

Outside the “Shawinigate” bubble, things are not pretty.

Prince Edward Island potatoes still are barred from the United States’ market, almost certainly a violation of trade law. The farm income “crisis” continues apace.

The Canadian livestock industry is walking on eggs (excuse the inter-farm sector reference) about whether border protections are adequate to keep foot-and-mouth disease out of the country.

The economy sinks into the doldrums with falling profits, job losses and a dollar falling in value every day.

And on April 1, Canada’s multi-billion dollar lumber exporting industry faced a crisis as the Americans defied evidence and trade rules to try to block Canadian exports south.

Yet in the House on April 2, the Canadian Alliance, Bloc Québecois and Progressive Conservative leaders continued to be obsessed by questions of who owned what and when in a penny ante Shawinigan golf course.

This is not a question that will keep prairie farm families up at night. Unfortunately for them, they live in a world where the attention of opposition MPs seems rarely to land these days, at least during parliamentary moments when media are watching.

Last week, Canadian Alliance MPs said there are various ways to raise farm and other issues in the system. The ethics of the prime minister are an appropriate focus for question period. Hmm.

Vance Simpson apparently did not make a sharp impression on Day during their brief meeting, since the Alliance leader still seems to think Shawinigate is the most important issue in the political galaxy.