Western Producer staff
Close your eyes for a moment and transport yourself to an imaginary scene from a political era not so long past.
First, there is a context that is far from imaginary. In the scene, the Progressive Conservatives are in power with an announced agenda of cutting spending and making government smaller.
Charlie Mayer is the agriculture minister with a very visible and controversial agenda to change the Crow Benefit method-of-payment. His proposals are divisive, stirring opposition from many who do not trust the Tories.
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Now comes the imaginary part. What would have happened had the finance minister announced a 30-percent cut in promised farm support spending, abolition of the Crow Benefit and a dramatic deregulation of the transportation system? To top it off, the research budget that the agriculture minister had vowed to defend to the death was slashed, more than 900 research-branch positions put on the block and the private sector given much more control over the research agenda.
How would farmers have reacted? Some in Mayer’s camp would have been pleased but they would have been drowned out by angry denunciations from legions of critics.
There would have been demonstrations. The parliamentary Opposition would have been in full cry.
Of course, the Conservatives never dared engineer such a dramatic assault on government support for the industry, even had they wanted to.
In fact, it is the Liberals who have launched the assault.
It was Liberal agriculture minister Ralph Goodale who promised to protect research and then announced the sharpest cutback in recent history.
So where is the opposition?
True, farmers are raising a ruckus over the issue of who should receive the pay-out. Still, on the general principle of the cuts and the end of the last vestige of the Crow, the Liberals seem to be escaping the abuse that would have been generated just a few years ago.
Part of the reason must be farmer fatigue with the issue.
After two decades of fighting a rear-guard action to defend the historic benefit, farmers seem to have accepted the inevitability of its demise.
Part of it is that the Liberals have not yet acquired the baggage the Tories had, baggage that had most voters believing every Tory pronouncement was another nail in Canada’s coffin.
And part of it has to be the curious Parliament Canadians elected in 1993.
There has been no stir in the House. The Bloc QuŽbecois cares only if something penalizes Quebec. On all matters of government spending, Reform simply asks why the Liberals did not go farther.
Those within the Liberal Party who in private life would have opposed these policies, like MP Wayne Easter, clearly have decided on obedience in order to retain a place inside the big Liberal tent.
For Liberals, it means the worst fears about plummeting post-budget popularity have not been realized.
For veteran watchers of past budgets and past phases of the Crow debate, Goodale’s easy ride is a marvel to behold.
