THESE are volatile political times on the federal scene, arguably the most volatile since the first three decades of the 20th century.
That was a time when the Liberal party seemed at one point to be doomed, new parties were forming and disappearing, the Conservatives briefly disappeared, independent MPs were common and the West finally seemed to be getting in with the rise of the Progressives.
Consider the recent past.
The Tory party that is considered the party of Confederation has disappeared. A new Conservative party has appeared. Polls are gyrating wildly and MPs are switching allegiances like spouses at a swingers’ party – Conservatives to the Liberals, Liberals to the Conservatives, maybe Liberals to the NDP, former separatists to the Liberals.
Read Also
Agriculture needs to prepare for government spending cuts
As government makes necessary cuts to spending, what can be reduced or restructured in the budgets for agriculture?
It’s enough to strip the gears of a political junkie trying to keep up.
But taking a longer view, perhaps the most amazing political development of the past half-decade is the growing affection between the federal Liberals and the cattle industry.
It was evident last week when Canadian Cattlemen’s Association president Neil Jahnke came to the defence of the Liberal government after listening to strident Conservative attacks on Liberal handling of the BSE issue: “I have no criticism to make,” Jahnke said.
Meanwhile, the Liberal party has attracted several cattle industry players as election candidates in the traditional Liberal wasteland of Alberta. A decade or two ago, that would have been unthinkable.
The cattle industry was (and still to large extent is) identified with the conservative side of the spectrum. When a CCA president in the 1980s became an Ontario Liberal candidate, he was a bit of an embarrassment, like the eccentric aunt who lives in the attic.
Now, the cattle industry is coming out of the attic. Being a Liberal is not the cardinal sin it once was.
What happened? Who changed?
The most accurate answer is “both.”
The nadir of the relationship between the Liberals and the cattle industry came during the Trudeau government of the 1970s and early 1980s when agriculture minister Eugene Whelan was promoting a cattle marketing board and the party was against Canada-United States free trade.
Both positions ran against the grain of an industry that sees itself both as free trade and free market, never mind its government-authorized protection against too much competition from cheaper offshore beef. Ottawa was the socialist enemy.
When the Chrétien Liberals took office, they reverted to their Laurier-King roots and embraced free trade, one of the policies that made those two Liberal prime ministers the toasts of the West. As well, talk of a beef marketing board is nowhere to be found.
Meanwhile, the cattle industry has discovered government and taxpayer dollars.
An industry that traditionally looked down its collective nose at grain industry neediness suddenly has been hit by its own brand of market uncertainty and dysfunction. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been gratefully received and hundreds of millions more have been requested.
The Liberals moved right, the cattle industry joined the needy agricultural mainstream and the two have become partners.
There must be some noisy graveyards where earlier generations of cattle industry leaders are buried.
