Opposition MPs were grousing last week that the Liberal majority on the Commons agriculture committee was trying to protect the government from hearing criticism of its stand-pat position on farm income support.
They suspected a message had gone out from agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief’s office, letting it be known that the last thing the government needs is pressure from the committee for more spending.
When asked, Vanclief flatly denied it and insisted he is encouraging the committee to hold hearings on the farm income situation.
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Yet is it easy enough to see why Opposition MPs would be suspicious.
Naturally, they are in the business of suspecting government motives.
But there was a distinct lack of Liberal enthusiasm when Reform, Bloc QuŽbecois, NDP and Conservative MPs all insisted the income issue is urgent and should take precedence for committee time over planned hearings into trade talks not scheduled for more than a year.
Last week’s was a crucial meeting of the committee, called to set the agenda for the fall and the months before finance minister Paul Martin tables a budget which reveals government priorities for spending any surplus.
There has been little indication agriculture will be one of those priorities. The last thing the government wants is more focus on Canadian farm support being much less than in the U.S. and Europe.
Open-ended hearings offering a forum for hard-luck farm stories and calls for a government that cares more about agriculture would hardly be welcome in Martin’s office, or perhaps in Vanclief’s.
So when the committee sat last week, the Liberals made sure their side of the table was full, even if it required the addition of MPs from those agricultural hotbeds of Ottawa and Hamilton.
When two Liberals considered voting with the Opposition to hold hearings, the count was not taken and another motion put. They fell into line.
Watching from the sidelines was a representative from the office of Government House Leader Don Boudria, keeping track of how the debate was going.
Joe McGuire, the minister’s representative on the committee, steadfastly opposed the proposal for farm income hearings, insisting that debating trade policy for world trade talks is more important than trying to pressure Paul Martin for help next winter.
Meanwhile, with a provincial election looming, the committee agreed its first priority would be a meeting on how Ottawa can better help Quebec sheep producers whose flocks are being ravaged by scrapie.
If income questions do get asked during trade hearings, expect the Liberals to spend more time defending the government than agreeing more is needed.
When Canadian Federation of Agriculture president Jack Wilkinson was at finance committee to ask for more farm support in the budget, two urban MPs riled him by asking why farm help should be deemed more important than tax cuts, health spending or debt reduction.
Maybe that was a raw glimpse of the Liberals’ second-term agriculture policy.
