More than two months ago, during the countdown to the scheduled April 1 launch of the agricultural policy framework and its controversial safety net programs, a senior rural Liberal MP lamented the “brinkmanship” that had gone on between Agriculture Canada and dissenting farm groups.
Paul Steckle, chair of the House of Commons agriculture committee, urged both sides to pursue compromise so better programming could be developed.
This week, the first player in the standoff is starting to step back from the brink.
Grain Growers of Canada, a tough and articulate critic of government safety net design plans, has decided there is no percentage left in keeping up the fight.
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Meanwhile, other issues GGC wants to pursue are being neglected and member groups feel the tense relationship with Agriculture Canada on safety nets could hurt its credibility on other issues.
It means the group is going to become less visible on the issue because it sees no point in pursuing the campaign.
Call it a political retreat into strategic silence. Agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief will take it, whatever it’s called.
He has been battered by farm group criticisms and relations between the minister, his department and the industry are strained.
Of course, he can continue to expect the slings and arrows of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, which has no intention of going south on the safety nets issue. If anything, he may find CFA opposition toughening.
It is not surprising the grain growers were the first to beat a strategic retreat.
The group didn’t form in the late 1990s to become another farm lobby campaigning for more farm aid. Its members, including the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association and Western Barley Growers Association, have tended to be on the anti-government side of the spectrum.
Ironically, its first two major issues have been aidÐrelated – a campaign for trade injury compensation and better safety net design. It lost both.
But its more fundamental collective policy goals are deregulation, ending the Canadian Wheat Board export monopoly and making sure Canada’s trade negotiating policy favours exporters like GGC members and is not tempered to try to defend supply management tariffs as well.
Besides, not all GGC members agreed with the group’s criticisms of the APF.
Not long ago, there was the spectacle of two GGC members at the same Commons agriculture committee meeting to argue opposite points. Western Barley Growers was for it, Ontario Corn Producers Association was against it and some MPs (and reporters) were confused.
A retreat from the front lines of the safety net debate will allow the grain growers’ lobby to retrench into issues on which there is more internal unity and less fraternizing with the subsidy-seeking farm groups with which it found itself allied.
But Vanclief and Agriculture Canada should take little comfort from the muting of one negative voice. GGC can claim some of the sharpest minds in the farm lobby business and they still think the government’s APF design is wrong. It’s just that they’ll keep more of their thoughts to themselves from now on.
