IT being the political dog days of summer in Ottawa, with little
happening in the government policy machine, political reporters have
decided that the Liberal leadership issue is all that is happening.
Will former finance minister Paul Martin successfully push prime
minister Jean Chrétien from office?
If he does, will he become prime minister, even though Martin turns 65
next year and would be one of the oldest first-time prime ministers
ever?
Will Chrétien’s legendary political survival skill save his neck again,
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a neck many political opponents have promised to wring? Does anyone
remember Kim Campbell, Preston Manning, Lucien Bouchard, Jean Charest,
Stockwell Day, Gilles Duceppe or Joe Clark?
To read the daily reports, the plotting and counter-plotting seem to be
taking up most of the prime minister’s attention these days. Who has
time for running government when you are battling former friends for
your job?
Well, for the sake of the farm and food business, let’s hope the prime
minister is able to focus on more than one thing at a time.
Rarely have so many key agriculture industry positions been vacant at
once.
The prime minister either makes or vets all the pending appointments.
In the grain industry, the prime minister’s office has applications for
the key position of chief commissioner of the Canadian Grain
Commission. Barry Senft is long gone to the Canadian International
Grains Institute and the industry is watching to see if the new chief
commissioner can patch things up with some CGC critics in the farm
community.
Down the street at the Canadian Wheat Board, chief executive officer
Greg Arason is leaving and his replacement will play a pivotal role in
operating the board while the political debate about its future roils
around it.
For the Canadian meat and food industry, few positions are as important
as the president of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, vacated at the
beginning of July by Ron Doering. The new CFIA chief will set the tone
for how the agency deals with overseeing introduction of on-farm food
safety systems, regulating genetically modified foods and manoeuvering
around critics’ complaints that the agency is too close to the industry
it is supposed to regulate.
And for the multi-billion dollar dairy industry, the June departure of
Canadian Dairy Commission president Michel Pagé leaves a key government
position open. Industry eyes will be on the new president to see if he
or she fulfills Pagé’s controversial promise to improve the
cost-of-production formula to fully compensate more farmers.
When he isn’t thinking about Paul Martin this summer, Chrétien has a
lot of CVs to read.
- *********
After reading a July 4 critique of the political fight over Canada’s
dairy export policy in this space, Rick Phillips of Dairy Farmers of
Canada called to argue I was wrong to suggest American consumers pay
less than Canadian consumers for Canadian milk products. I agree. In
fact, it is the American processor who gets the break from lower-priced
Canadian exports. Whether that is passed on to consumers is another
matter.
