Election plans likely behind about-face on tobacco - Opinion

ON FEB. 7, 2008, federal agriculture minister Gerry Ritz was absolutely clear about what he would not do for the beleaguered Ontario tobacco sector.

Farmers looking for an exit strategy in the face of declining demand, falling prices, a government anti-tobacco campaign and increasingly worthless quota could expect little help, certainly not a quota buyout.

“I am not interested in buying out quota,” Ritz said outside the Dairy Farmers of Canada convention where many delegates were quietly wondering about the implications of a World Trade Organization deal that could undermine the value of Canada’s $20 billion worth of dairy quota. “Never will be.”

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By April 1, despite a promise that the Conservatives would offer more than the Liberals had, Ritz was telling the industry that there would be no special funding beyond existing programs.

But by the end of July, Ritz had swallowed himself whole, promising $300 million in new money and tying it directly to a payout based on quota even though he was careful not to call it a quota buyout.

You can be certain supply management quota holders took note.

What could have happened between the spring line in the sand and the summer capitulation?

One obvious possibility is that the government recognized its responsibility.

Odious as the product may be to anti-smoking advocates, tobacco has been a legal and lucrative crop for more than a half century, a crop whose value has been destroyed by taxes, government anti-smoking policies and untaxed contraband tobacco imports that governments have been loathe to challenge because often they come through First Nations reserves.

If ever a legal and lucrative agricultural market was destroyed by government policy and inaction, it is tobacco.

Yet doing the right thing is not always the natural government reaction, particularly if money is involved, precedent is to be set and face is to be lost because of a policy reversal. The more likely explanation is politics and the impending election campaign.

Ritz’s stance, and that of predecessor Chuck Strahl, had outraged the influential tobacco grower lobby and the many southwestern Ontario communities that benefited from the industry.

In Diane Finley’s Haldimand-Norfolk riding, tobacco leaders had declared themselves “disgusted” and accused the two-term MP of breaking a promise to help.

The most influential local newspaper openly predicted Finley would lose the seat she took from former agriculture minister Bob Speller in 2004 and it appeared ready to promote her defeat.

A handful of surrounding rural seats won by the Conservatives in 2004 and 2006 as a key part of the Tory minority victory also were considered vulnerable because of apparent government insensitivity.

This summer, when key members of the team that helped Ontario Conservative Mike Harris win consecutive right wing provincial majorities in the 1990s moved into leadership roles in the prime minister’s office, the importance of keeping that rural Ontario beachhead would have been recognized.

Suddenly, $300 million and a quota-based buyout became do-able.

The consequences of a quota-compensation precedent are years away.

For the moment, the Conservatives have an election to win.