Pressure builds for more ad-hoc farm assistance - Opinion

IF THERE was one moment during the past year that most rural Liberal

MPs probably wish they could forget, it was March 20, 2001 when they

rose one by one in the House of Commons to swallow themselves whole.

Canadian Alliance MP Howard Hilstrom had lifted promises from various

Liberal speeches of the previous few weeks and moved a motion that the

government add $400 million to the farm safety net budget.

Agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief had announced $500 million on March

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1. Farm leaders, with loud support from Liberals, had said $900 million

was needed.

So that evening, after a day of parliamentary debate, opposition MPs

jeered as government MPs played good soldiers, falling on their

rhetorical swords to protect their generals.

It was not a scene easily forgotten. Hilstrom’s clever act of political

mischief played out beautifully for the opposition.

Therefore, it was not surprising that when rural Liberal and

agriculture caucus task force chair Bob Speller showed up at the

Canadian Federation of Agriculture meeting in Halifax March 1, 2002, he

was reminded of the vote.

Speller gave the best defence he could.

It was opposition political sabotage, said the Ontario MP. Liberals had

worked hard to get a government commitment of $900 million and were

disappointed by the $400 million shortfall.

But Liberals could not then turn on the government and condemn it after

having won more than half a loaf.

“If we had voted against the government after getting $500 million, do

you think they would listen to us the next time we came back?” he

asked.

“It is a misunderstanding of how the process works” to presume Liberal

MPs should have supported an opposition motion.

CFA president Bob Friesen shot back that with the executive style of

parliamentary government Canada has, the only leverage farm lobbyists

have is to expect MPs to vote as they say.

Well, luckily for Speller and his Liberal colleagues, they have another

chance to show farmers how their 2001 self-imposed humiliation allowed

them to survive to fight another day on producers’ behalf.

Once again, to Vanclief’s discomfort, cries are rising for more money

in safety net funding to help farmers.

The minister, along with cabinet, had hoped and vowed that 2001 marked

the last “ad hoc” payment. This winter, Vanclief has been proclaiming

across the land that “passive subsidies” aimed at propping up farm

income are bad policy.

Yet the pressure is growing as farmers face the after-effects of

drought, continued low commodity prices, foreign subsidy competition

and the prospect that a new national long-term policy will not be in

place for a year or more.

And once again, rural Liberal MPs are vowing to stand shoulder to

shoulder with farmers, fighting their cause within government, trying

to get more money out of the system and into farmers’ pockets.

Surely last year taught them that farmers expect them to vote as they

talk. Another display of Liberal solidarity to deny more farm aid would

be hard to swallow in rural Canada.

Surely some opposition MP wouldn’t be mischievous enough to put

Liberals on the spot with another timely farm support motion, would

they?

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