Ralph Goodale’s strategy of defending the Canadian Wheat Board from its critics by stalling for time has one underlying, and perhaps fatal, flaw.
Wheat Board supporters have not used the time Goodale has given them to mobilize their own show of support.
He looks isolated, leading a phantom army of alleged Board true-believers who do not appear to care enough to join the political battle.
Perhaps the traditional Board supporters, including the Prairie Pools, do not take the critics seriously. Perhaps they figure it is government’s job, not theirs, to defend and preserve the Board’s powers.
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Or perhaps these traditional supporters now have their own reservations about the Board. Whatever the answer, they seem unwilling to spend much political capital on the issue.
Meanwhile, almost without public allies, Goodale has been dodging and weaving, ducking and procrastinating, stalling and defending, waiting for reinforcements.
In the House of Commons, he faces a Wheat Board-hostile Reform Party. On the ground, he faces a small but well-publicized group of farmers willing to defy the government and the law.
In Washington and Edmonton, he faces overt and sometimes creative government opposition to the Board.
Even inside his own government, Goodale likely has few enthusiastic allies. This is a government of entrepreneurial conservatives hell-bent on reducing the influence of government. Defending a government-authorized monopoly against businesspeople crying out to be allowed to “compete” flies in the face of what goes for Liberalism in the 1990s.
Still, for the moment the government seems willing to let Goodale do his thing. At some point, though, Liberal strategists will start to demand evidence that defending the Board will win votes on the Prairies, not lose them.
Goodale has stalled by appointing the Grain Marketing Panel, by pleading for time and by insisting the critics are a minority. Last week, he called them a “select few” farmers out for themselves at the expense of their neighbors.
But a key part of this stalling strategy was to give his “silent majority” a chance to mobilize. It has not worked.
In mid-May, for example, Goodale acted quickly to plug a legal loophole in Board export authority that had been opened by a Manitoba court ruling.
It was a risky political holding action to buy time. For his effort, he was denounced by Board critics and editorial writers as being undemocratic.
What Board supporters rushed to his support in praise of his political risk on their behalf? Save for a statement from the National Farmers Union, none.
A Financial Post story said the “grain industry” was “fuming” over Goodale’s move. United Grain Growers president Ted Allen and Alberta agriculture minister Walter Paszkowski spoke for the “grain industry” in the story.
From the head offices of the Pools, before and after the story, not a peep.
Goodale must be wondering where his army is, or if there really is one, or if anyone cares.
