ARTHUR Kroeger’s death last weekend at age 75 marks a significant passing in the annals of agricultural policy affecting – some would say punishing – prairie grain producers.
The son of an Alberta Mennonite farming family who became bilingual, taught French in school, was a Rhodes scholar and ended up being arguably the most influential Ottawa bureau
newscrat since Lester B. Pearson, was also the author of the demise of the revered Crowsnest Pass freight rate grain subsidy 25 years ago.
For his efforts, Kroeger was much reviled by farm leaders who saw the Crow as the bedrock of prairie farm policy, one of the few ways that landlocked farmers were given an advantage as they tried to get grain to ports at competitive rates.
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Kroeger’s efforts as deputy transport minister to eliminate the subsidy as a throwback to prairie history of being a raw commodity exporting region that never received the benefit of value adding, created a hole in prairie grain farm income that has never been filled.
Railways make more money and the promised diversification prosperity has been tenuous at best.
In his day, Kroeger was reviled by farm groups including the prairie pools and the National Farmers Union.
His view prevailed, although not for more than a decade when the anti-deficit Liberals of Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin saw the Crow Benefit subsidy as a prime candidate for cutting in the 1995 landmark anti-deficit budget.
Kroeger went to his grave believing he was right. His justification will be revealed next year in a Crow wars memoir to be published by University of Alberta Press.
Kroeger had been doing interviews for the book over the past few years, reminiscing with other players about the drama and the import of the debate.
One of those he talked to was E. K. Turner, arguably the last powerful president of Saskatchewan Wheat Pool before it succumbed to the era of powerful bureaucrats.
The irony is that these two once-fierce political enemies met again as university poohbahs – Turner as chancellor of the University of Saskatchewan in the 1990s and Kroeger as the chancellor of Ottawa’s Carleton University.
Their conversations were cordial by all accounts.
“Ted was a great defender of his corporate and co-op position and I understood that,” Kroeger said not long ago. “We had a different vision but I understood and respected the difficult political position he was in and the pressure he was under.”
Kroeger came from Alberta farm roots and joked with transport minister Jean-Luc Pepin that once the full impact of the end of the Crow was felt on the Prairies, there would be statues erected to Pepin’s memory.
No, nor will there be statues erected to Kroeger’s memory, though he was one of the most influential Albertans on the national scene over the past half century with service in five departments and as an adviser to five prime ministers.
Still, the image I am left with is Arthur telling me that when his nephews Chad and Mike Kroeger from the successful rock band Nickelback came to town, he would get tickets and live among the screamers for two hours.
It is a fine image of family connection for a man who loved classical choral music.
