Coderre a likely farm ally if ChrÅ½tien shuffles jobs

WHEN prime minister Jean ChrŽtien finally gets around to shuffling his federal cabinet later this year, one of the new faces many expect to see is Montreal MP Denis Coderre.

Despite the fact that Coderre represents a totally urban seat, he would be a friend of rural Canada at the cabinet table.

“I’m an earth guy,” says the rookie MP and well-connected Liberal partisan. “I believe that agriculture is life. It’s a matter of values.”

In politics, it is commonplace to extol the virtues of rural life, but during his two years in Parliament, Coderre has shown he means it. He has been an aggressive defender of farmer interests as the only strictly urban MP on the House of Commons agriculture committee.

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Coderre says it is partly the result of his roots, a Quebec country boy by birth and a descendent of a farming family.

But it also is an indication of how this ambitious young Quebec politician sees agriculture as a core constituency in Canada’s political culture.

When he was elected an MP in 1997 (after earlier defeats in 1988, 1990 and 1993), Coderre asked to be placed on the agriculture committee.

“I see it as a core value in Quebec society,” he says. “But the agriculture committee also has introduced me to an important part of the rest of the country. It has helped me better understand the Prairies and Ontario in particular.”

Those contacts could come in handy later if his political ambitions bear fruit.

“When I travel in the West now, I have a far better idea where people are coming from.”

Coderre, a former Liberal party organizer in Quebec, has a keen and quick eye for political causes that draw attention.

He has been championing creative use of government support to help Canadian professional sports teams survive.

He has co-sponsored legislation aimed at posthumously vindicating 19th century MŽtis leader Louis Riel almost 115 years after he was hung for treason in Regina.

And he never misses a chance to attack or mock the separatists, whether it is over the latest Quebec government demand for more power or the claim by the province that the Canadien horse is a Quebec symbol, not a Canadian icon.

“I will fight them anywhere,” he says. “I love my country, Canada.”

But it has been on agricultural issues that Coderre says he has received most satisfaction.

Last summer, he took on the cause of Quebec sheep producers who felt they had not been treated fairly by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency after an outbreak of scrapie.

A day after he publicly chastised a CFIA official at agriculture committee over the treatment of one particular farmer, the agency responded by lifting the quarantine on some of her sheep.

“Quebec farmers are like farmers everywhere in Canada,” he said.

“They expect to be treated fairly and compassionately. I have learned that about farmers and it helps me understand better my country.”

If Coderre does make it to the cabinet table, Canadian farmers should consider him an ally.