Like the father figure that he is for the Liberal class of ’93, Jean ChrŽtien went to Saskatchewan last month to bestow his blessing and credibility on local-Liberal-made-good Ralph Goodale.
“I know that Ralph Goodale will work hard to help you make these adjustments,” he told a convention of rural politicians, referring to changes imposed on farmers by the February budget.
“He always works hard, very hard, for the Canadian farmer. I have been in public life for a long time and I have never seen a stronger and more articulate advocate for Canadian farmers than Ralph Goodale.”
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It was high praise, considering that during ChrŽtien’s 30 years in politics, he has watched such agriculture ministers as Harry Hays, Bud Olson, Eugene Whelan and Don Mazankowski.
Still, the words probably were more than self-serving Liberal rhetoric required for good political morale.
ChrŽtien seems to genuinely like Goodale, with his lawyerly care for detail, his work habits, his political instincts and his ability to defuse almost any hint of controversy by talking the issue to death.
Mainly, he probably likes him because Goodale so far has managed to keep the government out of trouble with farmers despite the fact that the Liberals have unleashed a rash of controversial changes that, in normal times, would have made any government highly unpopular.
He has reason to think that all these troublesome agricultural files are in good hands. It is Goodale’s year to keep the government out of trouble, to convince farmers that the bitter medicine the Liberals are dishing out is palatable, or at least inevitable. So far, it seems to have worked.
The list of issues he is juggling is impressive – the end of the Crow Benefit, severe budget cuts, a trimming back of safety-net spending, the inevitable end to supply management and a commitment to pass traditional government functions to the private sector.
By all rights, this should mean that Goodale’s 1994 image as “Mr. Indecision” should have dissolved.
Yet he still has his critics who do not want to let the image of a do-nothing minister die.
Elwin Hermanson, a Saskatchewan farmer who has emerged as one of the most influential Reform MPs in Ottawa, recently spent much of a Commons speech criticizing Goodale.
It was partly a criticism of Goodale for betraying the hopes of those voters who naively believed the feel-good Liberal election promises.
Partly, it was an attempt to perpetuate the image of the inactive minister.
“We are well into 1995 and to this point, we have not seen very much positive by way of performance by the minister of agriculture,” he said.
It is an odd point of view.
Farmers who are reeling from the most radical changes in farm policy in more than a generation surely do not see Goodale as a do-nothing minister.
Support him or oppose him, Goodale is making good on his promise that 1995 will be a year of decision for the sector.
