AMONG the issues facing new agriculture minister Bob Speller is a dramatic changing of the senior guard in his department.
During the past year, a number of senior managers have moved on or been shuffled out of their positions and this year, the exodus continues as such prominent safety nets players as Doug Hedley and Tom Richardson contemplate life after the bureaucracy.
There also are rumours in Ottawa that if he wins the expected spring election, prime minister Paul Martin will make a major shuffle in deputy ministers.
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Many farm leaders and agriculture-related MPs fervently hope that deputy agriculture minister Samy Watson is part of it.
Whether he is or not, much departmental corporate memory has and will pass out the front doors of the Sir John Carling building. Some of his key departmental advisers will be almost as green as Speller.
Enter Canadian Federation of Agriculture president Bob Friesen with some advice for the new minister: consider this bureaucratic transition as an opportunity to fix the department.
During a speech last week to a Dairy Farmers of Canada policy meeting, Friesen outlined his view of the three types of bureaucrats in the department:
- Those who know what they’re doing and then work with farmers to try to make things better. He singled out chief agricultural trade negotiator Steve Verheul as an example.
- Those who don’t know what they’re doing but know they don’t know and are not afraid to call farmers to find solutions.
- Those who don’t know what they are doing and don’t know they don’t know. He would name no names.
Clearly, the farm leader who is running for a Liberal nomination in Manitoba to try to influence change from the inside, figures a major part of the problem in the deterioration in relations between farmers and government during safety net debates is a surplus of bureaucrats who don’t understand the industry and don’t know it.
At a January meeting in Regina, Friesen said he heard prime minister Paul Martin promise to “revolutionize” the way Ottawa looks at the industry.
He figures a good place to start would be to make certain that senior policy makers are sensitive to the industry, understand its problems and don’t have a bias that financial crises happen because farmers are not big enough or not efficient enough.
Perhaps it could be part of the standard job interview.
“If a person is insensitive to the problems and does not have a willingness to solve the problem, then they either have to be told they need to change their approach or they should be replaced,” said Friesen.
His doubts about bureaucratic attitudes and knowledge bring to mind an earlier attempt by Liberal backbencher and former farm leader Wayne Easter to try to embarrass the department by asking in Parliament how many senior Agriculture Canada officials actually had hands-on farm experience.
“They govern from text books up there,” Easter has fumed.
“Some of them are hostile to the industry but wouldn’t have a clue how to grow a crop or make a buck in it.”
Mr. Martin, does revolutionizing Ottawa’s relations with farmers include creating a department that farmers can trust to be on their side?
