Ottawa bureau
opinion
Almost everyone who ever came in contact with him has a “Dave Kirk story.”
He was a larger-than-life character who helped shape Canadian farm policy through more than three decades as executive secretary of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, Dairy Farmers of Canada and the Canadian Egg Producers’ Council before retiring in 1985.
Many of the stories revolve around Dave’s great capacities: his capacity for hard work, long hours and mastery of detail; his capacity to consume great numbers of roll-your-own cigarettes and quantities of gin late into the night and then to be at his CFA desk early the next morning, none the worse for wear.
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“He was the end of an era,” says Don Knoerr of Smithers, British Columbia, a former CFA president who worked with Kirk. “He had an encyclopedic mind and a very strong sense that politics was about making a society fair and democratic. His Saskatchewan roots never quit showing.”
Bill Hamilton, who worked with Dave and later succeeded him as CFA executive secretary, has a similar recollection.
“The first thing to remember was Dave’s great respect for farmer opinion and his view that it had to be at the core of farm policy,” says Hamilton. “He had this great ability to listen to hours of debate and then to distill it into clear prose that captured its essence.”
Dave Kirk died Jan. 31. He was 82.
His obituary asked for donations to ABC Canada Literacy Foundation “in recognition of his passion for the power and elegance of words.”
Dave spent his life dealing with policy minutia far removed from daily struggles on the farm yet never lost his passionate belief that it was done to make the world a better place for average people.
He came of age in Tommy Douglas’ Saskatchewan and began his working life with the co-operative Saskatchewan Wheat Pool.
My favourite Dave Kirk story comes from the early 1980s. It was close to midnight on a warm June day after a late parliamentary debate on the Crow rate. I heard a racket in the National Press Club, looked in and saw an unsteady Dave and wife Elsie at the piano, singing Christmas carols.
I had heard about his legendary capacity to hold his booze and before 8 the next morning, I called the CFA office to ask the most complicated dairy policy question I could dream up.
He spent 20 minutes lucidly explaining the nuances of one of the most complicated public policies ever created by man.
It was awesome.
