Government MPs wonder what farmers want

On the eve of this week’s resumption of the Canadian Wheat Board debate on the floor of the House of Commons, some MPs in the government caucus are starting to realize they have a problem. Members of the largely non-western caucus don’t have a clue about what is going on in the region the legislation will affect.

“What is happening in the West in regard to the inclusion clause?” a Liberal MP asked privately late last week. “Is the concern real or imagined or are we wrong in including the inclusion clause?”

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Good questions.

They are asked because western representation in the Liberal caucus is woefully thin. Practically speaking, there is one rural Liberal MP from the west, Manitoba’s David Iftody.

The majority is from Ontario, with a smattering from Quebec, Atlantic Canada and the urban West.

Now, the caucus is being asked to push through the House of Commons legislation which will radically reform the Canadian Wheat Board. But because of the regional weight of the Liberal government, the optics of the issue are bad.

It is a controversial bill that has raised a tumult of protest, seems to have attracted few ardent and visible supporters and faces censure from all four parties in opposition, from right to left.

In the face of the criticism, all that uneasy Liberal MPs have for comfort is wheat board minister Ralph Goodale’s assertion that the bill is supported by a large, relatively silent majority of grain farmers.

Where is the evidence?

It would be hard to find, based on last week’s events in Ottawa during which MPs were lobbied by the opponents while the supporters remained silent.

What are non-western Liberal MPs to think when in one week, they hear that:

Two western Conservative premiers think the legislation goes too far and should be toned down.

A western farmer coalition papers the capital with arguments against the legislation and the wheat board monopoly. They use as a hook the proposal to allow farmers to add grains to CWB powers (the inclusion clause) but their target really is the board monopoly.
A western farmer delegation appears in Ottawa to complain that the wheat board is too secretive and should be subject to the auditor-general’s review – a position the auditor general has supported.
The anti-CWB secrecy lobby inspires the influential Toronto Globe and Mail to write an editorial supporting critics of the wheat board.

In the face of all that, the government vows to press on, insisting that the majority is behind them.

Yet Liberal MPs must be wondering where the support is, whether this really is a popular change, whether this will produce Liberal results in Western Canada.

Where are the voices in favor of C-4?

And once it reaches the less partisan Senate where legislators have job security to age 75 and do not owe allegiance to a party, will the more visible and vocal critics make more of an impression than Goodale’s alleged silent majority?